(BFM Stock Exchange) – After six months of interruption, the Syrian capital’s scholarship resumed its activities this Monday, June 2, in new premises.

The Damascus Stock Exchange reopened its doors on Monday after six months of closure, an opportunity for the Syrian government to bet on a doubling of investments by the end of the summer.

“The today’s reopening of the Damascus Stock Exchange marks a crucial step in the economic recovery process,” the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Stock Exchange, Fadi Jleilati told AFP, while evoking the challenge of “integration into world financial markets”.

An influx of capital

Fourteen companies out of the 28 listed resumed their market activities on Monday.

The scholarship has reopened in new premises located in a set of modern buildings in Yaafour, near the capital. She had closed a few days before taking Damascus by an Islamist coalition which overthrew Bashar al-Assad.

This reopening follows the lifting of American and European sanctions against Syria, allowing public and private actors to reconnect with regional and international financial institutions.

The lifting of the sanctions also allowed the authorities to conclude investment contracts, in particular the signing Thursday, May 29, of an energy agreement of $ 7 billion with a consortium bringing together companies from the United States, Qatar and Turkey, to rehabilitate the electricity sector ravaged by the war.

“Thank goodness, investments and capital began to flock to Syria, and we plan that at the end of this summer, their volume will have doubled,” said Minister of the Economy, Mohammad Nidal Al-Chaar, on the sidelines of the reopening of the Damascus Stock Exchange.

“A competitive market economy”

The authorities, who bet on foreign capital for reconstruction, are working to promulgate a new investment law in order to create a climate favorable to investments, with the gradual lifting of international sanctions.

According to Mohammad Nidal al-Chaar, “the economic environment is now practically ready to welcome investments” and “priority (..) is to break with the mentality inherited from the old regime”.

He indicated that the efforts of the new authorities relate to “improving the standard of living of citizens by creating economic opportunities and attracting foreign and local capital”.

The minister said his desire to build “a competitive market economy, where the state facilitates the production process.”

The authorities thus hope to improve the standard of living and increase income in a country where more than 90% of the population lives below the poverty line, and where one in four people is unemployed.

(With AFP)