REPORT: EU to give trade preferences to countries hosting Syrian refugees - Merkel

The European Union will do whatever it can to improve export conditions for the countries bearing the brunt of Syria's refugee crisis, including possible trade preferences, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

 

"The European Union will do everything possible to improve the trade conditions for those countries, to give certain trade preferences (to countries hosting Syrian refugees) so the products will find their markets," Merkel told a news conference at the end of a conference of donor nations in London.

She was speaking after Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, which host the vast majority of Syria's over 4 million refugees, agreed to take measures to give the new arrivals access to education and the labour market.

Speaking at the same event, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the $11 billion pledged at the conference represented the biggest amount of money raised in a single day for a single humanitarian crisis.