3.5 Million Property Contracts to Be Digitised in Syria

The Ministry of Local Administration and Environment is digitising property records in a project aimed at modernising property management, protecting documents from damage or loss and improving data accuracy. Assistant Minister for Administrative Affairs Zafer al-Omar said in a television interview that the project aims to safeguard citizens' rights, ease property transactions and support investment and rebuilding.

Project Components

Al-Omar said the project rests on three main tracks:

• Real estate departments
• Zoning plans and their associated service networks
• Electronic services

Work began with the first track, covering property records and contracts, cadastral plans and the geodetic map of Syria.

Contract and Funding

Al-Omar said the ministry signed a memorandum of understanding and a contract with Creative Associates International, with financial support of about $2.045 million from the US Department of State. It covers equipping five archiving centres in Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and building a main data centre in Damascus to hold and organise the digital archive and link the centres to it.

The project includes technical equipment, computers, scanners, networks, storage and backup systems, and training for staff in the real estate directorates on preparing, scanning, indexing and quality-checking documents.

Scale of Archiving

According to al-Omar, the project targets about 3.5 million property contracts and roughly 23,000 records. He said Damascus holds about 1.65 million contracts, Aleppo more than 2 million, and Raqqa more than 300,000.

He added that the ministry is drawing on the Turkish experience following reciprocal visits, and is reviewing the Saudi experience.

Data Protection

Al-Omar said each employee will have a personal account and password, so any change to the records can be traced to the person who made it. He added that the ministry will adopt international standards, keep a paper reference for some records, build more than one data centre and store periodic copies in other locations.

Rebuilding Damaged Records

Al-Omar cited the Zamalka experience, where 15,600 properties were reconstituted, 15,200 of them administratively, while 400 require judicial reconstitution. He said he chairs the committee reviewing Law No. 33 of 2018, ahead of a new law to ease proof of ownership.

On the contractor's role, he said its tasks are limited to equipping buildings, technical equipment and furniture, while the ministry will equip and operate the data centre through its own procedures and tenders. He added that the ministry is in talks with the World Bank, the European Union, GIZ and UN-Habitat to support the sector.