Facing its worst economic crisis, Syria is banking on boosting self-sufficiency to overcome sanctions, Economy Minister Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar told Agence France Presse in an exclusive interview Thursday.

"This is not an easy crisis. It's the worst in our recent history because it is immediately affecting the Syrian citizen -- it's affecting the street, it's affecting factories, it's affecting the business community," Shaar said.

The European Commission offered on Thursday an additional 500 million Euros in EU aid for Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia to put Soviet-era nuclear reactors out of service for good.

The three EU states closed down the reactors as part of their deals to join the European Union, but Brussels wants to ensure that the power plants are forever sealed off.

Italy's new Prime Minister Mario Monti insisted at Eurozone debt crisis talks Thursday that his country would balance its budget in 2013, despite rising doubts over its ability to do so.

Monti said after the talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he had laid out his economic program to the leaders, "confirming the objective of a balanced budget in 2013."

World stock markets edged higher Thursday as speculation that China might ease its monetary policy soothed fears that the German economy — Europe's strongest — may be succumbing to the continent's debt crisis.

Benchmark oil hovered above $96 per barrel while the dollar fell against the euro and the yen.

The International Monetary Fund called on Wednesday for Lebanon to adopt a cautious budget for next year as the country faces challenges from unrest in neighboring Syria.

"High downside risks call for a prudent 2012 budget," the IMF said in a statement following a Fund mission in Beirut.

Finnish-German telecom equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) on Wednesday announced a restructuring plan entailing 17,000 job cuts by the end of 2013.

NSN, which on November 1 counted 74,000 employees, "plans to reduce its global workforce by approximately 17,000 by the end of 2013," it said in a statement, adding that its restructuring plan was aimed at cutting annual costs by one billion euros ($1.3 billion) compared to 2011 outlays.

Fitch ratings agency said Wednesday that it was cutting the outlook on Turkey from 'positive' to 'stable' given a recent increase in risks and affirmed the country's rating at BB+.

"The revision of the Outlook to Stable reflects an increase in near-term risks to macroeconomic stability," said Ed Parker, managing director in the EMEA Sovereign group at Fitch.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday held a workshop under the Lebanon Business Linkages Initiative (LBLI) with the Syndicate of Lebanese Food Industries (SLFI) to increase knowledge about accessing international food markets.

Farmers, food industrialists, governmental officials, and academics attended this workshop. The project supports SLFI in developing a strategy to access the U.S. specialty food market.

A Eurozone bailout deal set up last month to slash Greece's huge debt by nearly a third is probably the last chance to reconstruct the country's economy, the Greek central bank warned on Wednesday.

"The new opportunity provided to Greece under the agreement of 26 October may well be the last such opportunity," the Bank of Greece said according to an official translation of a Greek statement released first.

Syria, isolated over its deadly protest crackdown, hopes to cash in on support from neighbors Iraq and Lebanon to counter Arab sanctions that threaten to choke its economy.

"We know how to manage when the going gets rough, because we have been facing sanctions for years," a Syrian official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.