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\u2019t help unblock the peace process.<\/p>\n
Syria remains on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism.\u00a0 It has been there since 1979.\u00a0 Syria is under a slew of US sanctions.\u00a0 This is something Damascus would like to see change.<\/p>\n
Syrians complain of a list of things they can\u2019t get from the United States-from Boeing replacement parts for their national fleet of planes, to American education books.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho has that effected?\u00a0 It\u2019s effected ordinary Syrians.\u00a0 It\u2019s effected young people, depriving them of safe travel, safe education.\u00a0 They have been a complete failure in serving any of America\u2019s interests.\u00a0 Having said that, once they become embedded into US law, it becomes very difficult to do away with them.\u00a0 We know it becomes very difficult to do away with them,\u201d said Sami Moubayed, the editor of Forward Magazine.<\/p>\n
Syria is in the midst of trying to open up and reform its economy.<\/p>\n
Just last year they opened a stock exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d said Syria\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Abdullah Dardari.<\/p>\n
Saker Aslan of the Damascus Securities Exchange expanded, \u201cWe only trade stocks and bonds.\u00a0 We are starting the exchange.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have derivatives, we don\u2019t have short selling, we don\u2019t have margin trading, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n
Syria\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Like much of what is going on in Syria, they look to other countries for technology.<\/p>\n
Abdullah Dardari said, \u201cSome of the best engineering companies in the world are American and they are not party to this great journey we are going through.\u00a0 And I always ask myself, why not the Americans?\u00a0 It is the US Administration and the US Congress which is stopping US Companies from benefiting, from taking part in this exciting adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exciting maybe, but not without challenges.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Said Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari, \u201cThis is a global economy we live in.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meantime, Syria is projecting 50 billion US dollars in infrastructure investment in the next 5-10 years.\u00a0 A lot of it will be foreign.\u00a0 The Syrians say they need the overseas expertise for projects of a very complex nature\u2014from building toll roads to airports.\u00a0 Much of the world will be watching the development of these ambitious plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019t help unblock the peace process. Syria remains on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism.\u00a0 It has been there since 1979.\u00a0 Syria is under a slew of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}