Syrian Industry Program: New Support Tracks to Move Manufacturing from Recovery to Competition

Syria's Minister of Economy and Industry issued a decision launching a national program called "Syrian Industry", aimed at reviving the manufacturing sector by setting eligibility conditions and support tracks for industrial facilities.

Program Objectives

The first article of the decision states that the program "aims to restore the production efficiency of industrial facilities, expand the base of local production, and develop exports," and will undergo an annual review to adjust support tracks according to economic conditions.

Syrian Economists Syndicate head Mohammad Al-Bakour told "Souria Now" that the program seeks to move the industrial sector from a recovery phase, marked by restarting halted facilities, toward a phase of growth and competition. He added that the core objective is restoring production capacity, increasing local output, deepening Syrian added value, reducing reliance on imports, creating jobs, raising the competitiveness of Syrian products, and opening new markets for them.

Eligibility Conditions

Article two of the decision set three main conditions for benefiting from the program:

• The facility must be duly licensed or in the process of operational regularization
• It must rely on a local content or added value ratio of no less than 40% in the final product
• Full compliance with Syrian standard specifications and approved quality criteria

Al-Bakour explained that the purpose of the local content condition is, in his words, "to distinguish products actually manufactured inside the country from those that merely assemble imported components, in order to ensure they deserve the support."

Proposed Support Tracks

Al-Bakour proposed distributing support through multiple tracks that address the diversity of industrial activity, including:

• A restart track dedicated to factories that have halted operations
• A production modernization track for facilities seeking to upgrade machinery and techniques
• A local content support track for factories relying on Syrian raw materials
• Additional tracks focused on supporting exports, innovation and job creation across governorates

Implementation Notes

Al-Bakour stressed the need to direct financial support toward the actual production process, urging that this national program not be confused with international aid programs tied to the recovery plan. He also called for adopting a simple electronic platform for submitting applications, with decisions on them finalized within no more than 30 days, to ensure the initiative proceeds without administrative obstacles.

Al-Bakour said the program is "an important step toward rebuilding Syrian industry," adding that its success will not be measured by the number of facilities registered, but by how many actually return to production, raise their output, create jobs, increase local added value, and enter foreign markets.