New Investments in Adra Industrial City

DAMASCUS, (ST) – Director of the Industrial City in Adra, Eng. Ziad Baddour, pointed out that the suitable investment environment in the city of Adra led to an increase in productivity during the current year in comparison with the years 2012 and 2013. Approving new laws, granting encouraging and supportive facilities, as well as the availability of local and expert labor led to revitalize the movement of marketing and disposal of production.

“The year 2013 has witnessed an increase in production due to the facilities granted to the industrialists, especially those whose facilities were damaged outside the industrial city because of the situation taking place in the country. Those industrialists were provided by land to build their industrial facilities which are equipped with full services and installments for 10 years,” Eng. Baddour added.

 “Other facilities also were granted regarding the sale of the old installations in addition to 40 locations allocated to new industries in the sectors of food, textile, packaging and engineering,” Eng. Baddour continued.

“The first quarter of this year achieved an increase in the movement of factories in comparison with the years 2011 and 2012. The most important reasons are the change and adjustment in the investment system and providing many facilities such as reducing the amount of the first installment of 33 percent to 15 percent for the establishment of investment, increasing the duration of installments of 5 years to 10 years and reducing the rate of increase of premiums from 5 percent to 3 percent,” Eng. Baddour clarified.

“Under the new investment system, the rate of insurance has been reduced from 4 percent to 2 percent of the value of the location. The period of the license, starting the construction increased to one year instead of 6 months and the period of validity of the building permit increased to 3 years instead of two years and can be increased to 5 years,” Een. Baddour stated.

He emphasized that these facilities granted to the existing and new industries in the industrial city aims to increase investments, move the domestic capital, ensure local industry depends on local resources, and ensure products for export.

He added that the most important thing is to absorb unemployment significantly, where the industrial sector is one of the real sectors of the economy, especially in crises where they attracted more labor to reach new employment opportunities in the city for more than 48 thousand jobs.

“The center of the fuel, which was established in the industrial city, began to work and to provide the factories and facilities with fuel according to monthly lists that monitor the city needs,” Eng. Baddour said.

 
He pointed out that the embargo imposed on the country had had a negative impact on the work in the city. The difficulty in bringing the needed raw materials for production and the difficulty in the movement of freight and its high costs obliged the government to go to new markets. The destination was to Latin America such as Brazil and Argentina and to the markets in Asia such as India, Iran, China and Malaysia in addition to Russia. The goal is to attract raw materials for local industries; in return, more attention was given to the new markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia for marketing local products.

He added that marketing is suffering from internal difficulties because of the current situation and disrupted the movement of trains bringing the cost of marketing and disposal that had an impact on the amount of production that increases and decreases and sometimes stops temporarily due to the movement of marketing and disposal.

“Some 380 industrial facilities were operating in the city in 2012 and currently about 500 facilities are operating, explaining that this increase in productivity resulting from an increase in the productivity of certain industries such as food installations, which increased 100 percent, while 50 percent of installations of building materials are ceased working,” Eng. Baddour added.

“The investment plan for the year 2013 is currently being carried out amounting to approximately 1,500 million Syrian Pounds including infrastructure projects to complete the sites for some new plants, maintenance and replacement of old projects in order to maintain full readiness of infrastructure services for the city,” Eng. Baddour pointed out.

In the framework of an integrated national action to contain those affected citizens by the current situation, Eng. Baddour explained that in coordination with the Ministry of Local Administration some 1200 housing apartments in the industrial city of Adra will be constructed as a shelter free of charge to be in favor of the city after the end of the crisis.

It is worthy mentioning, that four industrial cities were created in Syria, three of them under the Legislative Decree No. 57 of 2004 including the city of Adra in the countryside of Damascus, Hesya in the governorate of Homs and Sheikh Najjar in the governorate of Aleppo as another decree issued to set up the industrial city of Deir Ezzour in 2007.

These cities include sites dedicated to various types of industrial activities. They are divided into several small, medium and large levels to accommodate the large Arab, foreign and local investments as some events have been moved from the cities and urban centers, residential areas and green areas to the cities through modern organization and studied from environmental aspect where these cities are environmentally friendly cities.

Sh. al -Khatib