Losses of Syria’s Industry field reach billions
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The total of direct and indirect losses of industrial facilities that are run by the Syrian government have reached about 1,000 billion Syrian pounds (SYP), Minister of Industry in Syria, Ziad Sabbagh, said on Friday.
The best option for rehabilitating those facilities is to invest them in participation with the private sector from inside Syria and from “friendly countries”, in an interview with “Sputnik agency, Sabbagh added.
In September, the Syrian government presented 38 companies (for the first time) for investment to the private sector and friendly countries.
This was seen by followers as “selling government sectors to Iran with legal cover.”
“40 industrial facilities belonging to the public sector are being converted to the Iranian government property through multiple companies owned by either the Iranian ministries or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” Firas Tlass, son of former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, commented on the decision at the time.
Tlass counted some factories whose property would be transferred to Iranians including: “al-Safira Tractor Factory (Al-Furat), the Barada Sbeinah refrigerators factory, the compressed wood, matches and pencils factory in the Damascus countryside, the Apamea tire factory in Hama on Salamiyah Road, and others.”
On July 27, the Speaker of the Iranian Shura Council, Brigadier General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, announced a “comprehensive agreement for cooperation between Iran and Syria” that is being drafted.
Qalibaf expressed his aspiration to ratify the agreement by parliaments of the two countries and to be implemented, “in order to provide Iranian and Syrian traders and businessmen with opportunities to improve the economic and commercial cooperation and the reconstruction of Syria.”