Damascus, Aug 15 (IANS) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has underscored production as the current priority to help the country move forward following victories on the ground.

Speaking to the newly-formed government, Assad said the current priority is to support production and create job opportunities following the previous priority to restore security, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Security was necessary for establishing production, and today the opposite is right: production is necessary for supporting stability," he said.

The President noted that the largest parts of Syria have been liberated from "terrorist groups".

Prioritising production and creating job opportunities come as Syria is living through economic hardship as a result of Western sanctions, mainly the US ones.

After years of conflict, the war-torn country is now suffering from very long hours of electricity outage, as well as a scarcity of cooking gas and fuel.

--IANS ksk/