The Damascus expo, one of the oldest business events in the Middle East, opened on Wednesday, with Syria's authorities touting an economic vision as a country at the crossroads of the region.
The government is billing the gathering as proof of Syria's potential to attract investment to rebuild from a 13-year civil war and as a destination for businesses seeking a central position in the Levant.
Out of 800 companies participating, 200 are from outside Syria. Jordan and Turkey have large representations but there are also companies from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Belgium, South Africa and the Philippines.
No US companies appeared to be present. Washington started lifting sanctions on Syria in June but many imposed under the 2021 Caesar Act which mainly targeted the old regime remain.
President Ahmad Al Shara, who opened the expo on grounds near the Barada River in Damascus, said Syria will be transformed from a country from where capital fled under the old regime to a services provider, with a competitive manufacturing and farming sectors.
The “renaissance of Syria” has already begun, Mr Al Shara said, pointing out improved basic services and rising wages, as well as “waves of refugees going back to their homeland, with knowledge and expertise they had acquired”.
“Throughout its commercial history, Syria has always had prestigious positions among the countries of the world,” Mr Al Shara said at the opening ceremony.
“Despite all the wars and ambitions that have befallen this land, it has maintained its status and its craftsmanship, which have been imprinted on its people and society.”
The Syrian leader has not declared any specific economic policy but has signalled his preference for a non-interventionist approach, even towards merchants and businesspeople who have not declared allegiance to the new order.
Mohammad Hamza, head of a state company that manages the expo, said it would showcase Syrian capabilities and link the country with regional and international markets.
Syrian businessman Abdulqader Al Deiri said that while the government was sending the “right signals” by allowing businesses to operate without the state coercion that had marked Syria's economy under the Assad regime, it is still too early for an economic revival.
“The damage of six decades of Baath party rule has been huge,” said Mr Al Deiri, who expects regional volatility to curtail growth in sectors such as tourism. “Syria was a North Korea. The road to become South Korea will be long.”
The expo is going ahead a day after an Israeli raid on a military base south of Damascus killed six Syrian soldiers. The attack was near the main road to Jordan, one of the major participants in the expo.
Tension between Damascus and Israel has risen since Israeli authorities last month launched strikes in response to violence in the mainly Druze governorate of Sweida, in southern Syria.
State media said Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani was holding talks with the World Bank on Wednesday. It said Energy Minister Mohammed Al Bashir was talking to oil company Gulfsands about potentially “reactivating activities” in Syria.
The Syrian economy has been under severe restrictions for most of the period since independence in the 1940s, although Bashar Al Assad ushered in economic liberalisation soon after he inherited power in 2000. However, the benefits mostly went to what became oligarchs and their network of frontmen and junior partners.
The social and economic imbalance this created contributed to the start of the 2011 protest movement under which the Alawite-dominated regime killed thousands of civilians, mainly members of the majority Sunni sect. By the end of that year, a civil war was raging.
Rural Syrians in southern Deraa and elsewhere, the main losers from Mr Al Assad’s economic policies because stagnation hit the countryside hard, constituted the core of the armed rebels.
Now Sunni masses who support Mr Al Shara are looking for an economic dividend from the toppling of the old regime. Mr Al Shara, then head of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, led the 11-day offensive that removed the old order in December.
