Syria’s new rulers plan to privatise state-owned ports and factories, invite overseas funding and enhance worldwide commerce in an financial overhaul designed to finish a long time as a pariah state, the nation’s overseas minister informed the Monetary Instances.
“[Assad’s] vision was that of a security state. Ours is of economic development,” mentioned Asaad al-Shaibani in a wide-ranging interview in Damascus, his first with worldwide press. “There needs to be law and there need to be clear messages to open the way for foreign investors, and to encourage Syrian investors to return to Syria.”
Shaibani spoke to the FT forward of an look on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos on Wednesday, the primary time Syria will take part within the annual assembly of worldwide determination makers. He’ll use the journey to resume calls to raise punishing Assad-era sanctions, which he says will forestall Syria’s financial restoration and thwart different international locations’ “clear readiness” to take a position.
Whereas western nations have been fast to have interaction with the brand new authorities, many say they’re ready to see if they’ll act on their lofty guarantees earlier than easing sanctions.
The 37-year-old minister is without doubt one of the key figures within the new caretaker authorities and is near the nation’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously identified by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Sharaa’s Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the offensive that toppled former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
Within the weeks since, technocrats and former Assad-era civil servants have labored to uncover the injury performed to the nation and its coffers by the regime, Shaibani mentioned.
This contains the invention of $30bn in debt to former Assad allies Iran and Russia, non-existent overseas reserves on the central financial institution, a bloated public sector payroll and the decline of industries like agriculture and manufacturing, uncared for and undermined by corrupt Assad-era insurance policies.
Shaibani acknowledged that the challenges forward had been monumental and would take years to deal with. He mentioned authorities had been organising a committee to review Syria’s financial situation and infrastructure and would give attention to privatisation efforts, together with of oils, cotton and furnishings factories.
He additionally mentioned they’d discover public-private partnerships to encourage funding into airports, railways and roads. The problem, nonetheless, can be discovering patrons for entities which have been in decay for years in a shattered nation reduce off from overseas funding.
Shaibani mentioned restoration was the fast precedence, together with securing enough bread, water, electrical energy and gasoline for a folks pushed to the brink of poverty by Assad’s rule, battle and sanctions.
“We don’t want to live off humanitarian aid, nor do we want countries to give us money as if they’re throwing the investment in the sea,” he mentioned.
The important thing, he mentioned, was easing US and European sanctions on the Assad regime and on HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that many western governments nonetheless classify a terrorist group.
Whereas the US has issued a number of restricted sanctions waivers, together with for states who’re searching for to assist Syria within the interim, officers argue this isn’t sufficient. “Open the door for these places to start working,” Shaibani mentioned.
Whereas some western capitals like Berlin seem open to easing some sanctions, they’re ready to see the brand new Islamist-led authorities’s method to points comparable to ladies and minority rights. The EU is because of talk about the bloc’s sanctions at a gathering of overseas ministers on January 27.
Sanctions aid “must follow tangible progress in a political transition that reflects Syria in all its diversity”, the EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas mentioned this month.
Shaibani mentioned Syria’s new management was working to reassure Gulf Arab and western officers that the nation doesn’t pose a risk.
Some within the area, notably the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, are cautious of a resurgence of Islamist teams just like the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, whereas different Arab states fear the rebels’ success may revive revolutionary sentiment in their very own international locations.
Shaibani mentioned his new authorities was not planning to “export the revolution and start getting involved in other states’ affairs”. The brand new authorities’s precedence was to not pose a risk to others, he mentioned, however to construct regional alliances that pave the best way for Syrian prosperity.
He mentioned Syria’s “special relationship” with Turkey, probably the most energetic backer of rebels of their 13-year battle in opposition to Assad, would enable the nation to learn from Ankara’s know-how, regional weight and European relations.
However he pushed again in opposition to issues that this is able to give its northern neighbour undue affect or quantity to “Turkish expansion”. “There will not be nor is there subjugation,” he mentioned.
One necessary problem dealing with the brand new authorities is the destiny of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Washington’s associate in combating Isis, which Ankara considers an extension of Kurdish separatists who’ve lengthy fought the Turkish state. Ankara has threatened a navy operation in Syria’s north-east if Kurdish militias are usually not disbanded.
Since taking workplace, Syria’s new leaders have strived to disband the SDF and combine its fighters into the state, invoking the necessity for Syrian unity, however the SDF has up to now refused. Shaibani mentioned discussions with the SDF had been beneath method, including that Damascus was additionally able to take over SDF-controlled prisons that maintain hundreds of captured Isis fighters.
“The existence of the SDF no longer has justification,” Shaibani mentioned, including that authorities pledged to ensure Kurdish rights within the new structure and guarantee their illustration within the new authorities.
