📰 Damascus Dominance: Why the Capital Captures 80% of Syria’s New Investments

A specialised economic analysis has disclosed a striking concentration of emerging company formations in syria’s capital and its surrounding countryside during the first half of 2025, raising significant questions about the direction of reconstruction, resource allocation, and the formulation of future economic incentives. as per data compiled by the team behind The Syria Report newsletter, damascus and its rural outskirts accounted for over 80% of all limited liability companies registered during this period. In stark contrast, Aleppo—official-calender/" class="smart-internal-link" title="📰 Assyrian Organization rejects exclusion of Akitu Holiday from Syria’s official calender">Syria’s industrial and commercial hub prior to 2011—represented just 8% of total registrations, reflecting a marked shift in the country’s internal economic geography. A Stark Indicator of Developmental Imbalance Jihad Yazigi, economic analyst and founder of The Syria Report, stressed that the imbalance is not merely a statistical curiosity. Notably, “It is a glaring signal of the syrian capital’s outsized role in the national economy and a reflection of a pronounced trend toward centralizing wealth and opportunities in a narrow geographic area, at the expense of other provinces already reeling from the war’s devastating legacy,” he stated in a Facebook post.

Yazigi explained that the data points to a deeper structural flaw. The capital’s overwhelming share of emerging investment reveals a developmental disequilibrium between centre and periphery, threatening long-term reconstruction efforts and the formation of a cohesive national economy. While Damascus benefits from relative stability and proximity to administrative power—factors that continue to attract commercial and service-sector ventures—other provinces remain sidelined, aggravating socio-economic disparities and fueling internal migration toward the capital. A Call to Policymakers Yazigi emphasised that Syria’s economic planners bear a historic responsibility to interpret these indicators with gravity. “Crafting balanced economic policies demands paramount attention to investment distribution maps and company registration patterns,” he wrote.

Moreover, he warned that regional planning, public resource allocation, and financial and tax incentives will be ineffective unless they are grounded in these statistical realities. A concentration of wealth in a single region undermines inclusive development and obstructs the creation of a new social and economic contract rooted in equity and fair opportunity. Notably, yazigi also challenged the long-held assumption of Aleppo as Syria’s economic capital—an idea that persisted until the onset of the crisis. Additionally, the current figures, he argued, dismantle this “historical illusion”.

A Warning Sign for the Future as per Yazigi, the fact that Aleppo accounted for only 8% of new company registrations in the first half of 2025 reflects the deep damage inflicted on its industrial…