Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will inaugurate the Indo-Syrian Centre for Biotechnology at the Damascus University on Saturday.

The Syrian President Bashar al Assad is hosting an Iftar banquet in honour of the Indian prime minister in the evening. Bashar will escort Vajpayee after Iftar to the inauguration.

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"Syria and India are both secular countries and the centre within the University will be a visible symbol of the recent upswing in bilateral ties," an official said.

India has provided Rs 1 million for equipment for the biotechnology centre.

Syria is one of the first countries which sought knowhow and training in biotechnology from India, which has ongoing programmes with Brazil, Denmark, Mauritius, Sudan, Tunisia and Sri Lanka as well as developed countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

The current programme with Syria is being implemented under the protocol of cooperation between India and Syria signed in July 2000 and an agreed workplan between the Syrian Ministry of Higher Education and the Department of
Biotechnology.

The progress was reviewed in June last year and an implementation schedule as per the workplan was signed between
the two countries.

So far, ten Syrian scientists have been trained for varying periods of up to three months at leading institutions in India like the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, the Institute of Immunohaematology, Mumbai, the Centre for Food Technological Research Institute and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.