Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara will make his first visit to the UK next week.
The UK is expected to announce during his visit a new scheme to provide export finance to British companies seeking to trade with Syria.
British Syrian community members also hope Mr Al Shara's visit will also pave the way for the reopening of the British Embassy in Damascus and the Syrian Embassy in London.
SIA
“We’re hoping for more recognition from the UK government,” said Munzer Nazha of the Syrian British Business Council, which connects British businesses seeking to invest in Syria.
Diplomatic ties between the two countries were re-established last summer and Syria started work to re-open its embassy in Belgrave Square in November. A charge d’affaires is expected to be appointed soon.
Mr Al Shara met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the sidelines of Cop30 in Brazil last year, according to the Syrian state news agency Sana.
British Syrians
Mr Al Shara’s trip to London comes as British businesses seek to invest in Syria. Although major US and UK sanctions on the country were lifted last year, British and European companies are still hesitant to invest in the country due to security concerns.
Talal Al Hilali, the recently appointed director of the Syrian Investment Authority, hopes the country’s new investment law, passed last year, and reforms he is making to modernise the government body, can change that.
The UAE-educated engineer was in London on Wednesday to meet British Syrians who are seeking to invest in Syria, as well as major banks and construction companies. He also met the UK's Minister for the Middle East Hamish Falconer.
Mr Al Hilali urged British Syrians to help rebuild the country, despite the challenges. “I would love our Syrian community to participate right now,” he said. “Not after one year or two years, when the roads are good, when electricity is 100 per cent.”
He is also keen to support small to medium sized businesses, though the emphasis over the past year has been on establishing major port, energy and aviation contracts.
“We are not focusing on mega projects,” he added. “They were a starting base for us. We knew we needed those to move forward.”
The new investment law in Syria has been hailed as a pivot away from the statist and socialist policies that defined Baath party rule of the Assad family. It allows non-Syrian companies to own 100 per cent of their project and has removes an Assad era-clause that allowed the government to have a hand in them.
Mr Al Hilali, who managed his family's manufacturing companies and investments in the UAE, said he took lessons from Dubai’s financial and property sectors to develop the new regulations.
“I've taken all of the legal frameworks from my friends in Dubai, especially from the Ministry of Economy, who have supported me in a very big way,” he said. “We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We have to step in where others have finished.
“I brought in companies from Dubai to train my team on AI, how to properly utilise AI, also to speed up the process.”
Syria's new investment charter gives 100 per cent tax waivers to medical businesses, and 80 per cent to manufacturing businesses that export 50 per cent of their production.
Mr Al Hilali said he had sought advice from Dubai’s Land Department about establishing regulations for property development.
Several Gulf States have been in touch with the Syrian government over the past two weeks about making further investments in the country, Mr Hilali added, despite the continuing US-Israeli war with Iran.
“We’ve made agreements with Saudi Arabia and we will be replicating this with different Gulf states, where we come up with agricultural lands that would specifically be serving the region,” Mr Al Hilali said.
Establishing relationships with international banks remains a major challenge, Mr Al Hilali conceded. Many complain they are still unable to transfer large amounts of money from a European account to Syria.
Business links
Mohammed Haykal, a co-founder of Arab Bank Syria and chairman of Haykal Group, told The National that the bank had recently established a euro account with the Europe Arab Bank.
“This allows our clients to make payments in euros, transfer to third parties, and engage seamlessly with European companies,” according to an internal memo circulated by the bank.
Nevertheless, a growing number of Syrians abroad appear to be willing to take the risk involved in establishing a company back home.
Ranim Al Weir, who first came to the UK with her family in 2012 as a refugee from Homs, has invested some of her savings in a new software development company in Damascus. She has two staff there that she has been able to pay using overseas transfer.
The process began in August last year and she received the final paperwork last week. “The only difficult part was deciding on the company name because the system to check company names is not there yet,” she told The National.
“As someone investing in a start-up it was really reassuring to hear that this is what Syria needs at the moment. I’m not a big investor, but maybe it does something to help Syria.
“A lot of people were saying there were no roads, no electricity and no internet. But I still wanted to try. I just pressed on. Even if it doesn’t work, I’m still happy.”
