Syria looks to pick up the pieces of its shattered economy

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. DAMASCUS, Syria—More than a decade of civil war left Syria’s economy in shambles. The country lost billions of dollars in oil exports.

Inflation forced Syrians to carry massive wads of cash to pay for basic necessities, and nearly one-third of the country was estimated to suffer from extreme poverty. Now, as Syria’s new leaders seek to rebuild, they are confronting a raft of challenges, including convincing Western powers to lift sanctions and regaining control of the country’s oil sector. They will need help from foreign businesses and states, and some of the millions of Syrians who fled the country during the civil war.

“We need the know-how for doing business, we need the technology, we need plenty of things," said Mohammad Hallak, owner of a generations-old food-trading company and vice president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce. “We especially need sanctions to be raised in order to make the banking system work properly and to move forward." On the streets of Damascus, the downfall of the Assad regime has brought a newfound sense of optimism about the country’s future. Prices are dropping, and people are conducting transactions in foreign currencies for the first time in years.

Hotel lobbies in Damascus are teeming with Turkish businessmen looking to cut deals with Syrians. The country’s new rulers, the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, say they want to build a free-market economy, revitalize the oil industry and forge international partnerships. But none of that will be easy, with the country still fractured, foreign powers vying for influence and the West wary of a group running the country that began as an offshoot of al Qaeda.