Rebuilding the future

Syria’s political landscape has dramatically changed in the last fifteen months and so has its business environment. A few weeks before the uprisings began in March 2011, the Syrian government had announced its five-year economic plan running from 2011 to 2015, which was supposed to serve as a guide and a broad strategic framework for economic policy in the coming years. The plan confirmed the continued liberalization of the economy, the gradual cancellation of all forms of subsidies on energy products and a return to focusing on manufacturing and other “productive” sectors.  For many in Syria’s business community, which had already benefited from a step-by-step transformation of the economy into a market-led system since the early 2000s, the prospects looked promising. Syrian expatriates returned home to benefit from the new employment and investment opportunities. Regional investors were banking on the opening of a new frontier market, while locally-based investors saw