Transport

22-11-2023
The Syrian government is negotiating to extend the contract it has with French shipping giant CMA CGM over the management of the port of Lattakia’s container terminal. The Ministry of Transport has established a committee to negotiate with the French company but that does not necessarily mean that the contract with LICT will be eventually extended.
26-09-2023
A decision by the Syrian government to shift phosphate exports handled by the Port of Lattakia to the port of Tartous has highlighted tensions between the foreign private operators of these ports and the government. Syria holds the fourth or fifth largest rock phosphate reserves worldwide.
31-01-2023
The number of passengers and goods transported by the Syrian Railways Organisation, Syria’s main railway operator, increased by 127 percent and 26 percent, respectively, in 2022, compared with 2020 (data for 2021 is unavailable). 
20-12-2022
Direct flights between Damascus and Muscat are restarting as part of closer collaboration between Syria and Oman, a country at the forefront of the Gulf’s attempt to rehabilitate the Syrian regime.
18-01-2022
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Islamist group that controls the Idlib governorate and rural parts of the Aleppo, Hama, and Lattakia governorates, has recently inaugurated a multi-million dollar expansion of a highway between the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing and the Al-Ghazawiya crossing, which links the rural parts of northern Idlib and Aleppo.
11-01-2022
After over twenty years of negotiations, the Iranian government has announced that work on a multi-million dollar railway connection from the Iranian town of Shalamcheh to Iraq’s Basra is set to begin within two months. The link is part of a more significant railway project to connect Iran's Imam Khomeini Port with Syria’s Lattakia Port, the country’s main commercial port.
04-01-2022
The Israeli attack on the Lattakia Port’s container yard last week caused "significant material damage," according to state media, and is likely to depress further commercial activity at the port. Container traffic through the Lattakia Port has declined significantly since the beginning of last year, decreasing by 38 percent on a year-on-year basis.
22-09-2021
During the first eight months of this year, the Lattakia Port saw a significant drop in container traffic. According to data released by the Lattakia International Container Terminal LLC (LICT), by the end of August container traffic at the port decreased by 36 percent on a year-on-year basis.
30-06-2021
The United Arab Emirates has approved the resumption of direct flights to its airports by Syria’s two airlines in a boost for the country’s aviation sector that will also ease Damascus’s isolation.