Manufacturing

The Syrian-Uzbek Economic Forum held in Aleppo last week reflected Damascus’ growing efforts to diversify its economic partnerships and reposition Syria as a commercial transit hub amid ongoing geopolitical disruptions across the region. However, the forum took place only days after violent confrontations in Idlib between Syrian security forces and Uzbek fighters, underlining the complex overlap between Syria’s economic diplomacy and unresolved security dynamics involving thousands of foreign fighters still present in Syria, mostly in the northwest. 

Syria’s industrial landscape is shaped by a handful of large industrial cities and 268 smaller industrial zones or clusters.  This article dissects the government’s strategy towards these two models and the potential of each to support industrial recovery. 

A year and a half into post-Assad Syria, the business community in the coastal region navigates the positive and negative economic reverberations of the transitional government’s policies.

A new agreement to build a major cement and clinker plant in the Raqqa governorate has placed Al-Hasan Holding Group (HHG) at the centre of Syria’s evolving post-conflict industrial landscape. The cement project, a partnership with China’s Jiangsu Pengfei Group (JPG), comes as Syria faces a severe gap between local cement production and growing demand driven by reconstruction needs. The Syrian authorities are attempting to revive the country’s struggling cement sector by trying to boost local production, attracting investment in the sector, and imports.

Around 80 percent of the state-owned factories manufacturing cigarettes and flavoured shisha  are not fully operational due to the “sabotage and looting by former regime elements” during the military operation that ousted Assad, the head of the General Organisation of Tobacco (GOT), Modar Amr, said. The GOT, the state-owned entity that controls the sector, has reduced its workforce by 35 percent in the last year and tobacco production levels have plummeted to 3,209 tonnes in 2025, Mr Amr said.

The president of the Lattakia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Anas Joud, delves into the investment opportunities and the need for a medium-sized industrial city in Lattakia, and advocates for measures to protect local manufacturers.

After over a decade of litigation, the Paris Criminal Court has found French company Lafarge and four former senior executives guilty of financing terrorism and violating international sanctions.

During the Eid Al-Fitr celebrations last Friday, Syria’s Transitional President Ahmad Al-Sharaa announced that the country’s GDP grew between 30 and 35 percent in 2025 and projected that this year GDP will return to pre-conflict levels. In parallel, the Minister of Finance, Mohammad Yusr Barniya, announced that the 2026 budget totals USD 10.5 billion, a stark increase from the USD 3.5 billion budget from last year. Neither Mr Sharaa, nor Mr Barniya, explained the methodology used to produce these numbers. The GDP data, in particular, appears particularly disconnected from reality.

In this interview, AbdulRahman Al-Shawa, Deputy Director of the Precious Metals Authority, delves into the mandate and institutional framework of this public body that regulates the gold, silver, and gemstones market. Prior to the establishment of this institution last year, the Union of Craft Associations organised the gold and precious metals market in Syria.

Foreign capital is trickling into Syria’s cement sector; a Saudi company is set to rehabilitate several mills at the state-owned Tartous cement plant, and the Syrian government is evaluating 12 bids from foreign companies to invest in the Adra and Muslimiyeh cement plants, also owned by the state.

The Syrian Ministry of Health has published Decision No. 4 of 2026 (see Official Gazette issue No. 10), setting out its regulatory framework for the registration and import of foreign medical and pharmaceutical products.

The Syrian Investment Authority transferred a number of projects in the chemical industry sector to an Egyptian company and extended the implementation period for several other industrial projects.

The Syrian Investment Authority (SIA) has extended the implementation period for two industrial projects at the Adra Industrial City (Rural Damascus); one project is owned by a French company and produces industrial gases, and the other is a plastic manufacturing project owned by a Syrian firm.

Syrian-Saudi economic relations have furthered over the past week following the signing of contracts and binding agreements in the fields of aviation, telecommunications, and infrastructure development. The agreements were signed during a high-level Saudi visit to Damascus that culminated in the launch of several large-scale projects and the announcement of new investment mechanisms aimed at facilitating capital inflows into Syria after the lifting of economic sanctions.

In recent days, tensions between industrialists in Aleppo and the Transitional Government have flared up, with local manufacturers blaming Damascus for inaction to protect national production from imported goods. In parallel, the Damascus Chamber of Industry presented the government with a 37-page document setting out a strategy to revamp the industrial sector and tackle its structural problems.

The Syrian Investment Authority (SIA)  has extended the implementation period of a large household electrical appliances manufacturing project in Adra Industrial City (Rural Damascus), and a pharmaceutical project owned by Unipharma, a major local player in the sector. 

The Tartous port will host this spring its first ferry line with daily trips for passengers connecting to ports in Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus. Earlier this month, a Turkish company signed an agreement to build a shipyard in Tartous Port.

Last week, a Turkish business delegation discussed with the Syrian Investment Agency (SIA) ways to invest in industrial cities in Syria, and a Chinese company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Syrian Chinese Business Council to transfer their experience in industrial city management and integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

The Syrian Investment Agency (SIA) issued several decisions in November (See Official Gazette issue no. 44) regarding industrial projects in Syria.

The Ministry of Economy and Industry has extended the implementation period of a chemical industry project in the Adra Industrial City. The project aims to recycle and reprocess sludge and plastic waste to produce and extract petroleum derivatives.