Gin Reopens in Hama
A cotton ginning plant in the town of Muharda, in Syria's central Hama governorate, resumed processing raw cotton on 30 September 2026, ending a four-year stoppage. Work restarted after the facility received its first delivery of cotton drawn from the country's eastern provinces.
Capacity and Throughput
The plant can process roughly 12 tons of raw cotton during each operating shift, according to its management. In its last active season in 2022, before the shutdown, the gin had taken in 725 tons of cotton, a level of intake it has yet to approach since.
The gin's director, Satam Diab, was among the officials present for the restart, alongside the deputy general manager of the General Corporation for Cotton Ginning and Marketing, Mahmoud Al-Khalil.
A Strategic Crop in Decline
Officials described cotton as a strategically important, multi-use crop for the national economy. They acknowledged that cultivation has contracted sharply across most growing areas in recent years, as rising production costs pushed many farmers to step back from the crop.
The scale of that decline stands out against the sector's past. Syria produced about 1.165 million tons of cotton in 1997, far above the quantities now reaching plants such as Muharda.
Farmers and Traders Respond
Growers and merchants tied to the trade welcomed the reopening. A farmer from the village of Shizar and a cotton merchant from Aleppo governorate were among those noting that a working gin restores a nearby processing and marketing outlet that had been absent during the shutdown. For growers in the areas where cultivation has held on, the reopening shortens the distance between the field and the processing line.
Outlook for the Sector
The restart points to a broader effort to bring idle parts of the agro-industrial base back online. Whether the plant can keep running will depend on how much of the coming harvest is delivered, with current volumes still well below the output levels the country once recorded.