Syria launches major highway restoration plan

Shafaq News- Damascus

Syria is moving ahead with plans to rehabilitate several major highways to modernize its network and strengthen domestic and cross-border connectivity, the head of the General Establishment for Road Transport said on Sunday.

Director General Moaz Najjar said the projects will facilitate the movement of goods and agricultural and industrial products between Syrian provinces, reduce obstacles to land transport, and lower shipping costs. He added that upgrading the road corridors will increase transit traffic with neighboring countries, boosting regional and domestic trade while enhancing competitiveness.

Najjar said Jordan, Turkiye, Iraq, and the Gulf States will be among the main regional beneficiaries of the scheme, noting that the Nassib-Aleppo highway forms part of the international M45 corridor linking the Jordanian and Turkish borders.

According to Najjar, work on the Nassib-Damascus highway is expected to take about 400 days, while work on the Damascus-Homs, Homs-Aleppo, and Saraqib-Idlib road plan is projected to last around 500 days each. The rehabilitation and expansion of the Damascus-Palmyra and Palmyra-Deir ez-Zor highways is expected to take approximately 900 days.

Regarding commercial transport routes, he pointed out that the General Establishment for Road Transport is updating the economic feasibility studies for the North-South and East-West route projects ahead of their implementation as toll roads under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, aiming to improve commercial transport infrastructure and enhance freight movement across Syria.