Real Estate & Construction

Recent investments in the building materials and construction sector reflect the strong activity in that industry. Syria’s construction sector will contribute significantly to economic growth in the foreseeable future in view of the huge demand for building materials and construction services. Across the country, many Syrians are not waiting for a nationwide state-sponsored reconstruction drive to rebuild their homes. Ensuring that these building materials are produced in Syria, rather than imported, is very important.

The recent USD 7 billion real estate development agreement between the Syrian Sovereign Fund (SSF) and UAE-based developer Arada has become the largest real estate development deal in post-Assad Syria to date, but key details regarding the partnership and ownership structure and the financing model remain opaque.

Abyat Hills, a joint Syrian-Saudi real estate development, entered a new phase this month when subscriptions for its residential units opened at the beginning of August, less than two months after the project was officially launched on June 7. But the subscription process ended almost as quickly as it began.

The Syrian Investment Authority (SIA) has issued Deçision No. 67 of 2026 (see Official Gazette Issue No. 27), extending the implementation period for a cement manufacturing project in the Hessia Industrial City. 

The Syrian government is in talks with the Saudi Fund for Development to finalise the transfer of a USD 1.5 billion grant for the ‘Syria Without Camps’ initiative, the Deputy Minister of Disaster and Emergency Management, Ahmad Qzayz, said. 

The Syrian Investment Authority has issued a decision granting a cement project in Rural Damascus one year to dismantle its assets. The project is owned by a holding company associated with the former regime of Bashar Al-Assad's inner circle. 

The controversial five-day detention ordeal of an activist seeking accountability for the unfulfilled pledges made at local reconstruction fundraisers has thrown into the spotlight the challenges that the organisers of such fundraisers face.

In this interview, the Director General of the General Company for the Manufacture and Marketing of Cement and Building Materials (OMRAN), Mahmoud Fadilah, explains that private and state-owned cement factories are covering only a third of the annual demand for cement, but projected that by 2029 local production will be able to meet demand. Mr Fadilah also offers some details about the investment contracts - worth a total of USD 1.5 billion - to revamp existing cement plants and establish new ones.

Syria’s construction sector has continued to show signs of renewed activity, driven by increasing foreign interest, new infrastructure agreements, and the revival of large-scale real estate projects. 

On June 7, during a ceremony held at the Dama Rose Hotel in Damascus, government officials announced the start of the implementation of two large residential projects: the ‘Abyat Hills’ project and the ‘Modern Urban Community’ project, both being developed in partnership between the General Housing Establishment and Saudi company Abyat.

The Syrian Investment Authority has issued Decision No. 3 and No. 4, dated 29 April 2026 (see Official Gazette No. 20), granting an investment licence for two major industrial projects. The first one is a food industries project located in Rural Damascus, while the second is a cement production project in Tartous.

In recent weeks, Emirati businessman Mohammad Al-Abbar, one of the Gulf’s most influential developers and investors, has announced investments in the real estate and e-commerce sectors, reflecting the growing Emirati interest in testing investment opportunities in Syria. From the revival of the Eighth Gate project west of Damascus, to the official opening of Noon’s first office in Syria, and the near-finalisation of multi-billion-dollar urban developments through Eagle Hills, Mr Abbar’s activities increasingly position him as a key gateway for Emirati private capital entering Syria.

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.

Syria’s transitional government inherited a skeletal welfare system in which citizens nominally had access to healthcare, social housing, subsidised goods, and retirement pensions, but reality on the ground was far bleaker. The new government, quick to adopt the free-market agenda and declare the end of the subsidy era, is still in the process of designing its social protection framework. This report offers an overview of what is left of the welfare state and examines the discussions between the government and international organisations to design social protection policies (which include a national cash transfer programme and a unified social registry project). It also looks into the financial viability of pensions, the strategy to counter the low levels of social protection coverage, the under-funding of social housing programmes, and explores the debate around health financing reform.

Tamam Al-Dubil, Director General of the General Housing Establishment (GHE), delves into the financing and structural challenges of Syria’s social housing programmes. In this interview, conducted at the GHE headquarters in Damascus, Mr Dubil elaborates on his strategy to attract foreign companies to invest in land owned by the establishment in a bid to obtain the funding needed to re-activate social housing programmes, most of which are de facto suspended.

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.

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.

On February 25, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that an unnamed “U.S. person” had agreed to pay USD 3,777,000 to settle 20 apparent violations of U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria.

The World Bank Group is in talks with the Syrian government to provide a grant to develop water infrastructure, while contract awards for the project supporting the electricity sector should be finalised in the coming weeks. The Bank is also in the early stage of developing a Project Preparation and Development Facility (PPDF), and it is planning the establishment of a Multi-Donor Trust Fund.