DARAA, Syria (North Press) – 60-year-old Muhammad al-Safadi, pseudonym for an expatriate from the northern countryside of Daraa, a governorate south Syria, abstains from returning home and investing in it due to several reasons although he has been abroad for years.
Al-Safadi, who hails from the city of Jassim, owns a factory for food products in Kuwait.
Though he has long dreamed of establishing a factory in his hometown, unstable political conditions have always prevented him.
The expatriate said that the government’s policies “will prevent us not only from investing in our country, but even from thinking about visiting it.”
He believes that some Syrians have achieved success abroad due to suitable environment that their own country lacks, where the country’s whales monopolize industry and investment.
Daraa is an important commercial area in Syria, being the main crossing point to Gulf States, and it has many traits that encourage investments in agricultural sector, as the governorate is close to the Syrian capital Damascus.
Syrian investors and businessmen abroad do not venture to go back to Syria or invest in it for several reasons.
These reasons include: lack of political stability, lack of support to investors, unsuitable environment as well as government influential members’ monopoly on imports and exports in addition to others.
Some expatriates see that the government failed to attract investors, especially people of the governorate, back though it regained control over the Syrian south four years ago.
48-year-old Youssef al-Ayash, an expatriate from the city of Dael in Daraa countryside, said that he dreamed of returning to his city and investing in it, but laws, legislations, security conditions, security studies imposed by government security apparatuses, in addition to the penalties of Caesar’s Act prevented him from achieving his dream.
Al-Ayash, who works in vegetables and fruits trade in UAE, pointed out that the government does not support investors in Daraa which lacks an industrial zone or a commercial center, despite the presence of the Syrian-Jordanian free zone on border between the two countries.
He highlighted the absence of basic services, especially electricity and fuel that resulted in the discontinuation of many small enterprises and the reluctance of their owners to open them again.
“How can I return and invest in such conditions?” he wondered.
Most importantly, expatriates fear state of insecurity and continuous assassinations that the governorate goes through with the government forces’ inability to maintain stability.
In 2021, Daraa Governorate went through an 80-day-seige. After that, a number of Daraa’s notables and government forces, with mediation of Russian officers, reached a ceasefire agreement on September 5, 2021, including handing over weapons and deploying governmental security posts in the towns of the governorate.
Since the government forces re-captured Daraa in 2018, the governorate has been living in a state of insecurity, with one or two daily assassinations targeting soldiers and officers of the government forces, not to mention the spread of thefts.
Yahya al-Halqi, from the city of Izraa in the eastern countryside of Daraa who is an in the UAE, never thinks of returning and investing in Syria at the current time.
Al-Halqi, who works in construction and real estate, said that the investment’s environment in Daraa is inadequate, especially at the present time, “due to security concerns in light of the spread of royalties imposed by elements of government security services,” he said.
Before the Syrian war, al-Halqi worked for about five years in construction and real estate, but after protests that were staged in his country in 2011, he was forced to reduce his investments to less than 30%.
He added that the deteriorating security situation in Daraa does not encourage him to return at present.