Turkey is repositioning itself as the industrial bridge between Gulf capital and Syrian reconstruction

Short on liquidity to bankroll Syria’s reconstruction on its own, Turkey is repositioning itself as the industrial bridge between Gulf capital and reconstruction. Since Bashar Al Assad’s fall, Ankara has leaned on what it already had on the ground — proximity, SMEs in northern Syria, state agencies moving on housing and energy. But those advantages are running up against the limits of what the Turkish state and private sector can finance alone, and the reconstruction bill ahead — and the investment opportunities that come alongside it — are far larger than the trade flows that have defined the relationship so far.

The goal now is to pull Gulf capital in behind Turkish execution: “The relationship was mainly trade-driven; the emerging relationship must increasingly become investment- and production-driven,” Fuat Özçörekçi, who served two terms as co-chairman of Turkey–Syria Business Council and now sits on the board, tells EnterpriseAM. In the model he describes, Gulf capital provides the scale, Turkish companies bring engineering and project execution, and Syrian partners bring market access and labour.

Damascus, for its part, is working to make sure the reopening isn’t a one-way street. The Syrian Exporters Board (SEB) is working under the direct supervision of Economy and Industry Minister Nidal Al Shaar to identify products that can achieve a “reverse balance” in exports to Turkey, starting with raw and semi-manufactured materials from the textile and food sectors, SEB Chairman Abdel Kader Tahhan tells EnterpriseAM. IN CONTEXT- Trade is running overwhelmingly one way. Turkish exports to Syria hit USD 1.3 bn in 1H 2026, up 26.4% y-o-y, while Syrian exports to Turkey ran at just USD 450 mn — a near three-to-one gap that is the clearest measure of Turkey’s leverage in Syria’s reopening phase. That also means that Turkish exports are growing at a much faster pace than the bilateral trade itself, which was up 16% y-o-y in the first seven months of 2026 after a 45% jump last year that peaked at USD 3.7 bn.

That’s why Damascus is actively working on diversifying its economic partners rather than let the reopening become an Ankara monopoly, Syrian and Turkish sources active in bilateral business conversations tell EnterpriseAM. “Syrian authorities are attempting to balance this leverage by engaging with the Gulf, Japan, European countries like France, and the United States,” Fatih Kirsanli, economist and professor at the Social Sciences University of Ankara, tells EnterpriseAM, drawing on recent fieldwork across Damascus, Latakia, Idlib, and Aleppo as part of a Turkish government-supported project on post-conflict reconstruction.

The work is only beginning: “We cannot build our return [to export markets] by demanding it, but rather by building a product capable of competing in terms of quality, price, and reliability. This is what we are working on, step by step,” Tahhan says.

Where things stand

Turkey’s lead in Syria rests on three structural advantages: Geography, an existing state footprint, and a Turkish SME base that was already there. Such a combination offers depth for the Turkish presence that isn’t easily matched by competing partners in the near term, but one that won’t necessarily last for long as other first movers — mostly diaspora and GCC capital — make quicker moves on opportunities.

And despite the headline lead, these advantages haven’t translated into big-ticket investment flows. The Turkish state is tied by its own economic woes at home, and is instead looking for its own private sector to carry the mantle on Syria-bound investments, we were previously told.

The crux of the economic flows so far is based on Turkish firms supplying reconstruction-driven demand, with a strong presence in northern and central Syria projects, Ahmet Kadıoğlu, chief operating officer at Istanbul-based consultancy International Partnership Solution Group (IPS), tells EnterpriseAM. “The strongest immediate demand is concentrated in reconstruction and basic-service inputs rather than advanced manufacturing equipment,” he says, pointing to products like cement, steel, timber, glass, ceramics, pipes, cables, construction machinery, generators, pumps, and backup-power equipment.

And while the Turkish private sector already has a robust footprint, scale is missing. “Small and medium enterprises are already present in Syria due to proximity. As soon as you step into Aleppo, for instance, you see Turkish [businesses], but it is not yet at scale,” Kirsanli says. A Chamber of Commerce member in Idlib recounted the pattern directly to Kirsanli: Turkish businesspeople have told Syrian counterparts they are waiting on security, stability, and clearer government positioning before committing serious capital.

But it’s important not to look at competition with GCC and diaspora capital as a zero-sum game, as reintegration with Turkey would be a win-win for the whole region, we were told. “Better relationships create trade overflow into neighboring countries. In the past, disconnects created an economic lag zone; being reintegrated into trade and financial markets with our neighbors is a win-win for the whole region,” Damascus-based Alpha Capital Syria CEO Issa Chami says. Underpinning that is Turkey’s structural baseline — “the comparative advantage of proximity, manufacturing depth and the ability to supply not only finished products but also machinery, know-how, components and logistics,” Özçörekçi says.

Although big Turkish capital is not committed at scale yet, the Turkish government is on the ground supporting Syria’s emerging economic institutions, Kirsanli says. The foreign minister visits frequently and the economy, energy, and tourism ministries have all been actively on the ground. Beyond ministries, two Turkish state-backed vehicles are now moving on reconstruction:

• Toki, Turkey’s state housing agency, is planning to replicate its Turkish social-housing programme in Syria. The relevance is immediate: Roughly 3 mn Syrians have returned since Assad’s fall — about 1.5-1.6 mn from Turkey alone, according to Kirsanli — tapping into a housing market with no supply response and driving rents and prices beyond what many returnees can afford. Toki attended a Syrian housing forum during Kirsanli’s visit and is “looking for the appropriate timing” to begin building hundreds of thousands of apartments.
• Tika, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, is handling restoration of damaged historical sites — including centuries-old mosques — with a mandate to preserve historical integrity rather than build new residential stock.

Energy and mining MOUs on the level of government agencies are also racking up. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar recently signed multiple agreements in Damascus:

• Turkish State oil company TPAO will begin seismic surveys and exploration across Syria’s onshore and offshore fields, per The National.
• Turkish State mining company MTA signed a non-binding phosphate agreement with Syria’s General Directorate of Mineral Resources that could become a joint venture.
• The Birecik–Aleppo transmission line is coming online in the coming weeks, which would nearly triple Turkish electricity exports to Syria to 800–900 MW, per Turkey’s energy ministry. That’s critical for Syria’s industrial rebuild and the common citizen at a moment when full 24-hour electricity in places like Latakia is three years away, Kirsanli tells us.

Border crossings are being upgraded in parallel. Turkey and Syria are working on five of them — clearing landmines, expanding border yards, constructing new administrative buildings. Rehabilitation is under way at the Qamishli-Nusaybin crossing in the northeast, and Turkey reopened the Akçakale crossing into northern Syria in May, after both had been closed for over a decade following the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces’ takeover of Tal Abyad.

But border readiness is still uneven. “Direct Turkish truck movements into Syria have resumed, including through-transit shipments continuing toward Jordan and Gulf markets,” Kadıoğlu says. Some routes clear direct freight; others still require cargo to switch trailers at the line. Overland trucking offers a speed advantage for time-sensitive cargo, but border queues and driver documentation issues can prolong transit — and the Syria-Jordan crossing specifically needs more inspection and X-ray capacity, digital processing, and coordinated vehicle acceptance on both sides, Kadıoğlu adds.

How would the next stage look like

Scaling Turkish industrial investments may require a multilateral investment model, with local ownership, Turkish execution capacity and international financing, Özçörekçi tells us. Gulf capital provides scale; Turkish companies bring engineering and project execution; and Syrian partners bring market access and labour, he says. Turkey, in this frame, is positioning itself not just as Syria’s biggest trading partner but as the “industrial and operational bridge between Gulf capital and reconstruction opportunities in the Levant,” Özçörekçi adds. That could take the form of industrial partnerships, in which Syria exports raw and semi-manufactured materials, since Turkey “is a well-established markets and is important for Syrian products, so we’re not looking at them today as a competitor as much as we’re looking to build ourselves together,” SEB’s Tahhan tells us.

That bet on being the industrial bridge shows clearly in Turkey’s early push in industrial and freezones. In September, Turkish companies signed an agreement with Syria’s Investment Authority and governorate representatives to establish a 150-hectare industrial zone in Raqqa, part of a larger “Raqqa Vision 2030” plan. These zones can combine “Turkish technology, machinery and capital with Syrian labour, location and market access” — but only if investor legal protections hold over a ten-to-twenty-year horizon,” Özçörekçi says.

But these zones are still, at minimum, a few years away from commercial operations. “A new joint zone requires secured land, financing, a clear operating framework, reliable power and water, road access, wastewater treatment, customs arrangements, and functioning payment channels,” Özçörekçi, who has personally championed border-zone projects at DEİK, tells us. That means initial operations may need one or two years, while a “fully serviced manufacturing zone could take longer,” he estimates.

What adds strength to the bridge model viability now is the regional reshuffling of trade routes. Syria’s geography has become an asset rather than a liability, and the capital interest is tracking that shift. “The logistics and transportation corridors, data lines, and links have positioned Syria as an alternative route, creating new opportunities,” Chami says. Route shifts triggered by the US-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz left regional countries scrambling for overland alternatives through Jordan and Iraq; the Syrian passage is one of several alternatives for the Europe-GCC land corridor, with Turkey as the common node across them all.

An overland Turkey-Syria-Jordan-GCC corridor would significantly shorten certain supply chains, Özçörekçi says — but only if road infrastructure, customs procedures, border crossings, and transit rules become sufficiently predictable. “Logistics operators measure reliability in hours, not only kilometres,” he says. “A maritime route may be longer, but if its delivery time is predictable, companies can plan around it.”

Syria is steadily building the export infrastructure that would enable these zones to serve their role as an export gateway. After 14 years of war, the country’s crossings were dilapidated and both the equipment and systems were lagging far behind. This is now changing: the government is rehabilitating ports and border crossings, and the SEB is now rebuilding an integrated electronic system that will be SEB-led to facilitate exports, starting from standardizing specifications and compliance, all the way to easing logistics at export ports, Tahhan adds.

And the ambition runs beyond just exporting to Turkey. Syria was a regional export powerhouse prior to 2011. The country exported some USD 19.7 bn (adjusted to inflation), according to World Bank Data — nearly eightfold the USD 2.5 bn recorded in 2025. “[Our] ambition does not stop at Turkey. We are working on returning the Syrian product to its natural position in regional and international markets. We are working on carving out value for a clear identity and a good reputation that drives importers to seek this product and trust it,” Tahhan says.

GO DEEPER- We took a deeper look at the broader Levant corridor logic, looking at what conditions are needed for Syria to restore its place as the most efficient transit node for GCC-Europe flows and what might stand in the way.