Damascus is abuzz with activity, from international investors carrying out due diligence on business opportunities and infrastructure projects, to diplomats passing through to see if Syria can’t help unblock the peace process.
Syria remains on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism. It has been there since 1979. Syria is under a slew of US sanctions. This is something Damascus would like to see change.
Syrians complain of a list of things they can’t get from the United States-from Boeing replacement parts for their national fleet of planes, to American education books.
“Who has that effected? It’s effected ordinary Syrians. It’s effected young people, depriving them of safe travel, safe education. They have been a complete failure in serving any of America’s interests. Having said that, once they become embedded into US law, it becomes very difficult to do away with them. We know it becomes very difficult to do away with them,” said Sami Moubayed, the editor of Forward Magazine.
Syria is in the midst of trying to open up and reform its economy.
Just last year they opened a stock exchange.
“The stock exchange of Damascus is small, the number of companies listed is very limited, the number of investors is very small, but one has to understand that when we made the decision, it means our move toward a market economy is irreversible,” said Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Abdullah Dardari.
Saker Aslan of the Damascus Securities Exchange expanded, “We only trade stocks and bonds. We are starting the exchange. We don’t have derivatives, we don’t have short selling, we don’t have margin trading, for example.”
Syria’s economists are in the process of raising public awareness about stocks and bonds in a country where even simple banking had been relatively rare until recently.
Like much of what is going on in Syria, they look to other countries for technology.
Abdullah Dardari said, “Some of the best engineering companies in the world are American and they are not party to this great journey we are going through. And I always ask myself, why not the Americans? It is the US Administration and the US Congress which is stopping US Companies from benefiting, from taking part in this exciting adventure.”
Exciting maybe, but not without challenges. Corruption is a widely acknowledged issue which Dardari claims to be fighting, but in a country where salaries are low and the minimum wage is $80 a month, it will take time to get living standards to a point where incentives for corruption drop away.
Still, Syria thinks the US should consider helping Syria along its journey toward a more open, transparent economy, from a centralized to a market economy.
Said Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari, “This is a global economy we live in. It’s amazing that the people who have been pushing for an proposing trade globalization i.e. the United States, are now trying to block Syria from being part of the global economy, by for example, putting a veto on our membership in the WTO.”
Meantime, Syria is projecting 50 billion US dollars in infrastructure investment in the next 5-10 years. A lot of it will be foreign. The Syrians say they need the overseas expertise for projects of a very complex nature—from building toll roads to airports. Much of the world will be watching the development of these ambitious plans.