The regime has begun to prepare for steps it may take in the “confiscation” of Gulf properties and investments in Syria, under the justification of “compensation for the Gulf support of the opposition.”
The pro-Assad regime Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar shined light in a wide report on Wednesday about the proposed measure, claiming that it comes — if it is implemented — as a response to the “people’s voices calling for it to be issued.”
The report said that Gulf investments in Syria are mostly distributed across three main sectors: real estate, tourism, and financial services. It added that “some of these investments went into effect and are actual investments, and some others were on the way to completing registrations and overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and hurdles, however, the war stopped everything.”
The Lebanese newspaper published statements of official statistics which say Gulf investments significantly exceed their Arab and foreign counterparts, as the Syrian Investment Agency revealed that the value of three Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates — only included under the investment law number 10 and decree number 8, had reached more than 118 billion Syrian pounds throughout the period from 1991 to 2014.
Abdel Raheem Abu al-Shamat, a professor at the University of Damascus, said that “the value of Gulf investments is in the billions of dollars and are distributed across various economic sectors, not limited to tourism and real estate, but extending into manufacturing, energy, technology, and financial services.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
