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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Hard choices for Syrian industrialists in ruins of Aleppo

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AMMAN/ALEPPO: When Syria’s civil war came to the industrial city of Aleppo in 2012, two textile makers had to choose whether to stay or move their businesses away.


Nine months after fighting in Aleppo ended, the struggle of the one who stayed in the city to reopen his factory shows why the other will not return yet from the security of neighbouring Jordan. Restoring the Aleppo industries that have for decades underpinned economy is vital if President Bashar al Assad is to turn battlefield success into a fuller return of state power.


Moustafa Kawai, who remained in Aleppo, moved his cotton-weaving machines to a temporary site but now has workers clearing his battered factory of debris to reopen it.


“Our biggest problem is electricity. There are also very few workers because everyone’s in the army. Sanctions affect the work. Customers can’t come here. Transferring money is difficult. It’s hard to buy spare parts,” he said.


Mahmoud Akkad, a carpet manufacturer who like many Aleppo industrialists left Syria during the war, faces no such problems in Jordan where he has rebuilt his plant and kept up exports to old customers around the world.


“What do I benefit if I want to set up a factory and there is no safety,” he said, explaining the benefits of moving to an industrial zone in a country unaffected by Middle East turmoil.


The International Monetary Fund estimated last year that Syria’s economy had shrunk by 57 per cent during the conflict and its manufacturing sector by 77 per cent.


The war has since gone better for Assad as his army and its allies pushed rebels from Aleppo and other enclaves near important cities, and IS from energy fields.


Growing confidence is evident in a new banknote bearing Assad’s face for the first time and in Damascus holding its once-annual trade fair after a long hiatus.


But the war still dominates Syria’s economy, even where the fighting has stopped.


Most Aleppo factories were destroyed, badly damaged or looted. Their workers fled as refugees or became combatants.


Despite a new power line to the city, there is little electricity, leaving people reliant on expensive diesel generators. Water must be pumped electrically. Fighting continues outside Aleppo. The army and allied militias who control the city operate checkpoints that some Syrians say demand bribes to let goods or workers pass, a charge the military denies.


Travel outside the city means using narrow roads to bypass rebel territory and more checkpoints. Western sanctions make foreign trade much harder, hindering the purchase of new equipment and payments for


commercial deals. — Reuters


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