By Mohamed Alabbar
People have asked me the same question many times over the past few months. Why Syria? Why invest in a country often seen through the lens of conflict rather than opportunity?
My answer is simple. I have heard those same doubts before.
I heard them about Serbia when its economy was struggling and the world was still uncertain about its future. I heard them about Albania when people told me it was too risky, too unstable, too soon. Then I walked through Tirana. I met the people. I sat with them, listened to them, looked them in the eye. I saw warmth, resilience and leaders with a genuine determination to move their country forward. I came away convinced there was a very different story waiting to be written. Albania proved me right. Serbia proved me right. History, I have found, tends to reward those who see people clearly.
Today I feel exactly the same about Syria.
When I look at Syria, I do not see a country defined by what it has been through. I see one of the world’s oldest and most extraordinary civilizations. I see Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, a city that has been a crossroads of culture, commerce and ideas for thousands of years. I see a Mediterranean coastline of rare and dramatic beauty, fertile valleys of extraordinary richness, ancient cities whose stones carry the memory of empires that shaped the history of the entire world. Palmyra. Aleppo. Bosra. These are not simply ruins. They are among the greatest gifts any country has ever left to humanity. And beyond the history, I see a landscape of genuine natural beauty that relatively few people in the world have yet had the chance to experience. That will change. But more than any of this, I see people. Resilient, talented, entrepreneurial, dignified people who have endured unimaginable hardship without losing their identity, their pride or their ambition. I have traveled widely enough to know that those qualities are the true foundation upon which great nations are built. Not oil. Not geography. People.
Business has taught me that the greatest opportunities very rarely announce themselves. The easiest investment is always to follow the crowd, to go where others have already gone and where the path has already been cleared. The harder decision, and almost always the wiser one, is to recognise potential before consensus arrives. To see what a country can become rather than what it has been. To believe in a people before the world has caught up with them.
I believe Syria will become one of the most compelling investment stories in the Middle East over the next decade. Not simply because of its history, extraordinary as that history is. But because of its future. Because of the leaders who are now working with extraordinary courage and commitment to move this country forward. Because of the young Syrians inside the country and across the diaspora who are ready, skilled and hungry to build. Because of the sheer scale of what is possible when a nation of this depth and this talent is given the conditions to flourish.
I have always believed that you cannot arrive in a country simply to extract profit. Real investment means becoming part of the community. It means creating jobs that families depend on. It means working with local businesses, developing local talent, building infrastructure that outlasts any single project. It means leaving a place stronger, more confident and more capable than you found it. Financial returns matter, of course. But the best investments I have made in my career have always created far more than returns. They have created belief. And belief, in a country finding its footing, is worth more than any balance sheet.
The right moment to participate in Syria’s story is not when everything is already built and the risk has disappeared. The right moment is now, when participation means something, when it sends a signal, when it helps create confidence.
None of this happens overnight. I know that. Trust takes years to build and can be lost in a moment. I have spent my career working in markets that others considered difficult, and I have learned that optimism, when it is grounded in discipline, hard work and genuine long term commitment, can become one of the most powerful economic forces in the world. It does not just attract capital. It changes the story a country tells about itself.
Syria’s greatest asset is not its ancient ruins alone, nor its remarkable geography. Syria’s greatest asset is its people. Give people real hope, genuine opportunity and the confidence to invest in their own future, and extraordinary things happen. I have seen it. I believe it completely.
I have always believed that business, at its best, should improve human life. Syria represents that opportunity in one of its most meaningful forms. Not simply another investment destination. The chance to play a small part in helping unlock the potential of a country whose greatest chapters, I am certain, are still ahead.
That is why I believe in Syria.
That is why I am going.
This is part three of twelve. Beyond Profit is a twelve-part series published exclusively on The Buzz in which Mohamed Alabbar, founder of Emaar and Noon, family man, and one of the Arab world’s most influential business leaders, shares personal reflections on leadership, legacy and what it really means to build something worthwhile. The series moves beyond towers and financial results to explore the values, experiences and hard-won lessons of a man who grew up with nothing, has spent a lifetime building cities, businesses and opportunities across more than twenty countries, and is now thinking harder than most about the kind of future we are all building together: human, technological and everything in between. A new instalment publishes each month.
Photos: Aladdin Hammami and Hosein Charbaghi
