Free Zones Draw Fresh Capital
The General Establishment for Free Zones signed eight investment contracts on 13 October 2026 with four companies described as local, regional, and foreign. Together the agreements cover roughly 625,000 square meters across two of the country's border free zones.
The signing was announced by Mazen Alloush, director of international relations and cooperation at the General Authority for Ports and Customs, who framed it as a step toward turning Syrian territory into a logistics corridor between neighboring markets.
Tanf and Yaarubiyah Allotments
About 500,000 square meters were allocated in the Tanf free zone for industrial complexes and advanced logistics centers. A further 125,000 square meters went to the Yaarubiyah free zone for commercial and service headquarters tied to cross-border traffic with Iraq.
The licensed activities span petroleum-product trading and derivatives, manufacturing, warehousing, and transit shipping — a mix aimed at moving goods rather than simply storing them.
Corridors to Iraq and the Gulf
The signing was framed as a way to link Syrian ports and land crossings to Iraqi and Gulf markets, with later extensions toward Turkish and European trade. The Yaarubiyah allotment is tied specifically to cross-border traffic with Iraq.
No contract values or job figures were disclosed at the signing.
Currency Backdrop
The announcement landed as the Syrian pound (SYP) firmed about 1.6 percent against the US dollar (USD) over the preceding day, with the dollar selling near 14,050 pounds. The currency remains weaker than a week and a month earlier, down roughly 2.5 percent and 7.4 percent over those periods.
Filling the Zones
The new deals follow months of rising occupancy across the free-zone network. An earlier account from late August reported that some zones were fully leased, others were as much as 80 percent occupied, and about a fifth of available plots remained open, with occupancy in parts of the system expected to approach 90 percent by year-end.
Taken together, the contracts point to continued demand for warehousing and transit space along Syria's eastern and northeastern borders.