11.07.2025 Damascus Syria

The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) took a critical step to take economic relations with Syria to the next level in the new period. The TOBB delegation traveled to Syria to improve trade relations between Türkiye and Syria and to discuss the reconstruction of the country’s industrial and commercial infrastructure. The delegation headed by TOBB President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu met with Syrian President Ahmed Shara. During the meeting, Türkiye-Syria economic relations, cooperation opportunities and regional developments were discussed.

Stating that Türkiye will fulfill the requirements of neighborliness and brotherhood law, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that the meeting was very productive. Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We discussed the commercial cooperation between the two countries. They expressed that they want to cooperate with Turkish companies. I believe that commercial and economic relations will increase rapidly.”

- Support for Syria’s reconstruction

Stating that they held bilateral meetings in Damascus with a delegation of business people representing the private sector, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We follow the normalization process in Syria with great satisfaction. We appreciate the steps taken to ensure territorial integrity and to establish unity and solidarity within Syria. We will also support the success of the efforts for economic development. As TOBB, we are here for the Syrian economy to get back on its feet. We discussed how we can support the reconstruction of Syria, how we can revive the private sector and entrepreneurship, and how we can improve the trade volume of the two countries. Turkish companies can play an important role in many sectors such as infrastructure, construction, energy, food and logistics.”

- OIZ experience

Stating that they are ready to make all manner of contributions to build the future of Syria, Hisarcıklıoğlu emphasized that as the Turkish business world, they can transfer their experiences especially in the fields of Organized Industrial Zones and modernization of land customs gates, and that joint work can be done on these issues. Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “We have a great experience in OIZs. Since the 1990s, OIZs have spread throughout Anatolia and accelerated the industrialization process. Today, there are more than 400 OIZs across Türkiye. The companies located in these zones realize 45 percent of total industrial production and employ approximately 2.7 million people. Türkiye has become an industrial country thanks to this OIZ model. Similarly, land customs gates in Türkiye were modernized by the Chamber and Commodity Exchange community. It was selected by the United Nations as the best project worldwide and was shown as an example. Our land customs gates, which started to work more efficiently and effectively, increased the volume of passage exponentially, while the freight costs of our exporting companies decreased. We want to carry all these experiences to Syria. Technical work needs to be done for this. At this point, we conveyed in bilateral meetings that a workgroup should be established,” he said.

- Syrian entrepreneurs

Emphasizing that the transportation activities between Türkiye and Syria have recently gained momentum and that trade in the region has revived, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that in the first five months of 2025, 110 thousand transports were carried out from Türkiye to Syria and an increase of 60 percent was observed compared to the same period last year.

Hisarcıklıoğlu; “There are more than 30,000 companies established by Syrians in Türkiye. 6,000 of them are manufacturing industry companies. Türkiye’s trade with Syria declined from 2.5 billion dollars to 486 million dollars during the civil war. However, with the contribution of Syrian companies established in Türkiye in the following years, it rose to 2.5 billion dollars again despite all the difficulties brought by the war. By 2024, Syria’s biggest trade partner was Türkiye. Syrian entrepreneurs have a great contribution to this. This situation provides a great advantage for Türkiye and Syria to cooperate more in the new period.”

TOBB President Hisarcıklıoğlu also thanked the Turkish Ambassador to Damascus Burhan Köroğlu for his intense efforts and interest in the development of Türkiye-Syria trade relations.

- Delegation members

The TOBB delegation also met with Syrian Minister of Economy and Industry Nidal al-Shaar. During the meeting, bilateral economic relations between Türkiye and Syria, expectations of the Turkish business world and cooperation opportunities were discussed. Presidents of the Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, ICC Syria, Damascus Chamber of Commerce, Damascus Chamber of Industry, Damascus Rural Chamber of Commerce and Homs Chamber of Industry were also present at the meeting hosted by the Syrian Ministry of Economy and Industry.

TOBB President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu was accompanied by TOBB Board Members Adana Chamber of Industry President Zeki Kıvanç, Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry President İbrahim Burkay, Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce President Mehmet Tuncay Yıldırım, Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Hakan Sefa Çakır, Reyhanlı Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Necmeddin Zaroğlu, Sanko Holding Chairman Adil Sani Kanokoğlu and business people.