During a press conference, Industry Minister Ziad Sabbagh revealed that the Ministry of Industry has suffered more than one trillion Syrian pounds’ worth of losses from the beginning of the war until today.
The Syrian industry minister explained that the losses are distributed as follows: “Direct losses of 539 billion, indirect losses of 531 billion, with the total value of losses at 1.069 trillion.”
The minister pointed out that there are 103 facilities in the public sector, including 54 operating and 49 non-operational facilities, 18 of which have been destroyed. He added: “We had successful discussions with Iran, reaching an agreement to discuss investment plans for stalled and destroyed facilities. There has also been cooperation with the Chinese state, which began making progress, including a recent delegation to discuss the establishment of cement factories. These discussions reached the final procedural steps before moving forward to the execution stage.”
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At the same time, Sabbagh revealed that there are no proposals with the UAE to invest in the Ministry of Industry for now. He added that projects were put forward during Expo 2020, and he expects that the Emiratis will take part in the reconstruction process.
Sabbagh said that work is underway to rehabilitate the former Tamico company site in al-Maliha. The company has now reached 80% of its former production capacity, from before destruction.
As for private-sector losses, the minister said that there were 137,000 industrial and craft facilities as of September 2021 — 50,000 of which were not operational.
The minister added that contracts have been concluded for the rehabilitation and investment of Maskana and al-Raqqa Sugar Company and Arab Cement with a national investor.
At the end of the conference, the Minister of Industry announced a study being worked on to give workers additional benefits and compensation for lost salaries and wages.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
