A Summery of the Conference

The 10^th FYP included ambitious goals and development strategies for the Eastern Region which are mostly based on achieving balanced development amongst various Syrian regions. The Investment Conference, organized by State Planning Commission and held under the patronage of Mr. Prime Minister in early March with the participation of deputy Prime Minister for Economical Affairs and a number of Ministers, governors, Al-Ba’th Party Secretaries General, Parliaments' members, heads of federations and unions, diplomat envoys, international coordination organizations, Deputies Ministers, general administrators, administrators of the administrations concerned with investment projects in ministries and governorates of Deir Ezzor, Al- Hasakeh and Al- Raqqa and about 100 foreign investors, as well as, more than 100 local investors, came as a real call for putting the FYP into execution in this region.

The Conference introduced 141 projects which have been discussed through 4 synchronized workshops:

- Urbanism
- infrastructure
- services and trade
- Tourism
- Agriculture
- Industry

Each pivot included a presentation of the investment environment for the concerned sector, regulating laws and suggested investment mechanisms along with a group of projects suggested during the discussion. Some investors submitted official applications contracting for a number of projects as the project details were discussed directly with the Ministers and concerned authority personnel regarding execution.

Direct results of the conference:::

Tentative consent of including 22 industrial, agricultural, oilfields Services and cement projects in the Investment Law # 8 /2007.

Signing an agreement memorandum to establish an urban agglomeration in Bghailiah area in Deir Ezzor.

Receiving applications for Al-Raqqa airport and 14 other touristic projects.

Conference organization in numbers:

People invited to the conference: 304 people (the conference hall capacity) among which 109 governmental VIPs and business VIPs.

Government and public institutions and diplomatic envoys-118

Syrian businessmen-75

Foreign businessmen-111

The organizing committee had to apologize to 141 one willing to participate before the conference was held, 50 of them were administrators of public institutions, 91 merchants, industrialists, agriculturalists and members of Chambers. The committee was also unable to accept the requests of tens of local journalists.

Although the application dead line was 15^th of February 2008, yet the number of the participants who attended the conference without being registered in advance was 100 people, registered right before the opening session. The actual number of people attending was more than 400 people while it reached 640 in the opening ceremony.

Residency:

The number of hotel rooms in Deir Ezzor (5 stars -4 stars hotels assigned for official personnel and investors) is 220 rooms. The organizing committee in coordination with the Governorate of Deir Ezzor have facilitated all the guests and rest areas belonged to different Ministries to be available to the Conference to guarantee to maximum accommodation capacity of the participants such as (representatives of Official Offices- local and Arab media).

Travel:

The capacity of Damascus-Deir Ezzor aircraft is 24 passengers. The organizing committee had an agreement with the Syrian Arab Airlines, in the last few days before the Conference, to launch special flights for participants fully paid by the Conference. Those exceptional flights, specially the night flights, were essential to the success of the Conference whereas a lot of VIPs could not have accommodation.

It is important to note that two investors arrived to Deir Ezzor using their private jets, and that accommodations, hosting and transportation of all participants of the Conference were free of charge.

How was it all done? How were all the investors attracted to reserve the projects and attend the Conference?

It was achieved through the insistence of the State Planning Commission, (with the technical and financial support of the UNDP), on two principles which guaranteed the success of any coordination: Partnership and Transparency.

All preparations, including the project’s details and estimated value, were advertised and published on the conference website. They achieved four types of partnerships never combined to be tested before in Syria:

Real partnership in organization and preparation between the Ministries, State Planning Commission and Syrian Investment Agency.

International cooperation with the UNDP, with the investors, with big international sponsoring companies and with the international and Arabic press.

Partnership between the private and public sector.

Partnership between the central government and the administrative units represented by the governorates of Deir Ezzor, Al-Hassakeh and Al-Raqqa. This partnership is the most important one that we aim at to develop the Eastern Region.