Since the fall of the Assad regime, Syria has been living a striking paradox: an
\nincreasing political openness toward the outside world, exploratory visits by investment
\ndelegations, and an abundance of conferences, agreements, and memoranda of
\nunderstanding, contrasted with a domestic reality that remains incapable of translating
\nthis movement into actual reconstruction.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the current phase is not devoid of intermittent signs pointing to a return of
\ninterest in Syria, even if always driven by political calculations on the part of the
\ninvestment delegations rather than an attraction to economic opportunities in the first
\nplace. Over the past months, Damascus has witnessed Arab and Gulf investment
\nforums, and projects and agreements have been announced in the sectors of real
\nestate, energy, infrastructure, transport, tourism, and logistics.<\/p>\n
The importance of looking at the investment map before looking at its numbers stands
\nout. The statements made by the Chairman of the Emirati real estate company Emaar,
\nMohamed Alabbar, at the Syrian-Emirati Investment Forum gained their broader
\nsignificance as they opened a larger question about the direction of incoming
\ninvestments to Syria: Will they be an entry point to rebuilding the country in a more
\nbalanced manner, or will they reproduce geographical and developmental disparity
\nunder the banner of reconstruction?<\/p>\n
The founder of “Emaar” spoke about projects under study in Damascus and its
\nsurroundings with a value that could reach 11 or 12 billion dollars, and about another
\npackage on the Syrian coast that could range between 5 and 7 billion dollars, at a time
\nwhen the official discourse celebrated these figures as evidence of the return of
\nconfidence in Syria.<\/p>\n
On the surface, these numbers seem like good news for Syria. A devastated country,
\nemerging from long years of war, sanctions, and contraction, needs every dollar
\nentering its economy, and every company capable of employing labor, moving the real
\nestate market, reviving tourism, and rebuilding a part of external trust. One cannot
\ndownplay the significance of companies and businessmen of Alabbar’s weight returning
\nto think about the Syrian market, or Damascus turning once again into a hub for Gulf
\nand Arab investment forums.<\/p>\n
However, the real question lies in the investment map, which seems\u2014by virtue of the de
\nfacto situation\u2014to be an alternative to reconstruction. When the major package is
\nproposed in Damascus, and then a second package is added to it on the Syrian coast,
\nwe are facing an indicator of an old pattern of economic thinking in a new attire: the
\ncenter first, the facade second, while the peripheries and the regions most affected and
\nmost impoverished remain in a position of waiting.<\/p>\n
The problem does not lie in investing within Damascus. The capital, by its nature, is a
\npolitical, administrative, and commercial center, and any process of economic revival
\nwill need to restart it. The flaw also does not lie in investing in the coast, where there are
\ntourism, real estate, and service potentials that can attract capital and open up job
\nopportunities. The problem begins when Damascus turns into a semi-sole gateway for
\nviewing Syria, and when investment becomes a mirror to the desires of investors alone,
\nnot to the priorities of society nor the necessities of just reconstruction.<\/p>\n
Will the country be built according to the logic of national equity, or according to the
\nlogic of marketable regions? Will reconstruction be a project to reconnect the Syrian
\ngeography to each other economically, or a project to produce beautiful urban islands
\nwithin a vast country of ruin, poverty, unemployment, and displacement?<\/p>\n
What makes these questions more pressing is that the investment forums did not come
\nisolated from a prior context. In July 2025, Damascus hosted the Syrian-Saudi Forum,
\nduring which 47 agreements and memoranda of understanding were announced with a
\nvalue approaching 24 billion Saudi riyals, meaning more than 6 billion dollars. These
\nagreements were also presented as a sign of Syria’s return to its economic
\nsurroundings and the beginning of a new phase of attracting Gulf investments.<\/p>\n
However, the repetition of the scene in Damascus raises a political and economic
\nquestion simultaneously: Why does the capital always seem to be the stage of the first
\nannouncement, the center of the first contract, and the facade of the first investment?
\nAnd why do the devastated provinces not appear to the same extent in the heart of the
\ninvestment discourse?<\/p>\n
The Syria that needs investment is not Damascus alone, nor the coast alone. There is
\nRural Damascus, and the northern and eastern provinces\u2014Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir
\nez-Zor\u2014where agricultural, oil, and water wealth lie, and where years of
\nmarginalization, war, and destruction have accumulated. There are cities devastated
\nduring the years of war, such as Kobani, the symbol of victory over ISIS, and there are
\nmajor cities like Aleppo, with the industrial, commercial, and historical weight it
\nrepresents. There is Homs, as a central node between the north, south, east, and the
\ncoast. And there are the vast rural areas that cannot be left outside the equation of
\nrevival. If the reconstruction process is truly intended to be national, it must not be
\nreduced to towers, hotels, and complexes within the center or on the shore.<\/p>\n
Here, a distinction must be made between investment as a private activity and
\ninvestment as a public policy. It is the investor’s right to look for profit, for the safest
\nland, for the market most capable of paying, and for the fastest-marketing location. But
\nthe duty of the “state” is completely different. The state should not content itself with
\nreceiving investors’ offers and celebrating them; rather, it must lay out a national map
\nthat determines where investment must go, what sectors should have priority, and how
\ncapital can be transformed from a tool for beautifying the center into a means of
\nrestoring balance between regions.<\/p>\n
Those in charge of managing Syria could have presented a more balanced national
\nmap to investors, one that does not start solely from the most attractive sites for quick
\nreturns, but rather from the areas of most acute need as well: Aleppo as an industrial
\nlever, Homs as a node of connection and production, the Syrian East with its agricultural
\nand oil resources, and the South as a border area in need of economic and social
\nstabilization. Only then would investment turn into a tool for reconnecting the country to
\neach other and mitigating the disparities accumulated by the war and by pre-war
\npolicies of targeted discrimination against the Kurds nationally, and against the eastern
\nregion developmentally.<\/p>\n
Without this map, investment becomes capable of consecrating disparity instead of
\ntreating it. Regions that possess better infrastructure will attract more investments,
\nregions that enjoy a stronger political and security presence will gain greater
\nopportunities, and regions suitable for tourism and real estate marketing will appear
\nmore attractive than regions of agriculture, industry, and population return. Thus,
\ninstead of investments being a bridge between Syrians, they may transform into a new
\nmechanism for sorting them geographically: winning regions entering the era of
\nprojects, and losing regions returning to marginalization, considering that the current
\nauthority is an extension of a centralization and a method of governance that is not new
\nthroughout Syria’s history.<\/p>\n
To emphasize once again, this does not mean that every project in Damascus or the
\ncoast is a wrong project. Such a simplification weakens the hypothesis that the authority
\nis establishing a new geographical disparity, perhaps because the development of Syria
\nas a whole (at least theoretically) is a burden on their credit and external relations.
\nInvestment in the capital may be necessary to restart administration, the market, and
\nservices. Investment on the coast may create jobs, revitalize tourism, and attract hard
\ncurrency. But the problem lies in the absence of balance, and in the absence of the
\npublic question about the share of the rest of the Syrian geography. What will go to
\nAleppo? What will go to the East? What will go to the rural areas? What is the share of
\nthe regions that paid double the price of the war? And what is the share of productive
\nsectors, not just real estate?<\/p>\n
Real estate and tourism projects, no matter how huge, do not create a national recovery
\non their own. They may raise land values, create temporary job opportunities, and grant
\nthe state bright images of towers, complexes, and hotels (if they happen), but they do
\nnot necessarily treat the roots of the collapse: unemployment, weak production,
\ndecaying agriculture, destroyed industry, declining education, and the collapse of basic
\nservices. Therefore, the question should not stop at the number of billions that will enter
\nSyria, but must extend to a more fundamental question: Will Syria benefit from these
\nbillions (if they enter)?<\/p>\n
It would have been more fitting for those in charge of the investment file to display a
\ndifferent map. A state emerging from a war does not need large investors alone, but
\nneeds justice in the distribution of opportunities. It needs, before that, a vision saying
\nthat reconstruction is a test for building trust between the center and the peripheries.<\/p>\n
In the end, the problem does not lie in investments starting from Damascus, for it is the
\ncapital and the center, but rather in this beginning turning into a permanent policy that
\nmakes capital see only “Lesser Syria” which\u2014by coincidence\u2014matches the map of
\nwhat the deposed regime used to call “Useful Syria”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Syria has been living a striking paradox: an increasing political openness toward the outside world, exploratory visits by investment delegations, and an abundance of conferences, agreements, and memoranda of understanding, contrasted with a domestic reality that remains incapable of translating this movement into actual reconstruction. Nevertheless, the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":961,"featured_media":14496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[1007,593,1264,40],"ppma_author":[814],"class_list":["post-14492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-bashar-al-assad","tag-damascus","tag-gulf-states","tag-syria"],"authors":[{"term_id":814,"user_id":961,"is_guest":0,"slug":"the-kurdish-center-for-studies","display_name":"The Kurdish Center for Studies","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/315055790_1372439633161196_1832456394594784694_n.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/315055790_1372439633161196_1832456394594784694_n.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14492"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14494,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14492\/revisions\/14494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14492"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=14492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}