The Ministry of Industry has issued its annual report on the number of manufacturing projects that were licensed or began production in 2011.
According to the Private Sector Directorate of the Ministry, a total of 1,338 manufacturing ventures were licensed last year and 1,057 began production. The combined capital valuation of the former is SYP 28.6 billion and of the latter, SYP 31.1 billion. Projects licensed are not necessarily implemented.
 
Investors wishing to establish manufacturing ventures in Syria need to license their projects under Investment Law 8 of 2007, which provides various types of incentives and facilities, under Law 21 of 1958 - specifically dedicated to manufacturing ventures - or as a craft project. Each of these has specific requirements and offers different incentives.
 
Projects under the Investment Law are processed by the Syrian Investment Agency, while the others are processed by the Ministries of Economy and Industry.
 
The projects are divided by four broad sectors of activity: chemicals, food, textile and engineering.
 
Thus, of all plants that began operations last year, around a third were in the engineering sector and another third in food & beverages. The chemicals sector saw 194 projects launched although their combined capital value stood at SYP 18.5 billion or 59 percent of the total. Textile projects numbered 209.
 
The vast majority of the manufacturing projects are licensed under Law 21, although in terms of capitalization the largest fall under Law 8. Hence, the average capital size of a project licensed under Law 8/2007 stood at SYP 147 million, while for a project under Law 21 it stood at SYP 16 million.