Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group said on Thursday it had signed a deal to buy a minority stake in a container terminal in Syria’s main commercial port for $22 million, the latest sign of Syria drawing in investment as it tries to rebuild.
Under the joint venture and shareholders agreement with France-based shipping company CMA CGM Group, AD Ports will acquire a 20 per cent stake in the Latakia International Container Terminal (LICT).
The terminal handles 95 per cent of Syria’s container volumes, and is especially dominant in trade for agricultural products and industrial goods.
Syria is seeking to raise funds from international investors as it tries to recover from a 14-year civil war and decades of isolation that have ended with the ouster of former leader Bashar al-Assad last December.
At a conference in Saudi Arabia last week, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa pitched his country as a trade corridor ripe for even more than the $28 billion in foreign investment he said it had already attracted this year.
AD Ports said it aimed to restore the coastal region of Latakia’s role, "as a vital trade gateway," for Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The deal signed on Thursday, which builds on an existing partnership between AD Ports and CMA CGM, "will drive the modernisation of terminal infrastructure, digital systems, and operational performance," it said.
The terminal plans to increase its capacity to 625,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) by the end of next year from a current capacity of 250,000 TEU.
The deal is the UAE’s second such venture into Syria in recent months, after Dubai’s DP World signed a 30-year concession agreement in July to develop and operate the Port of Tartus, pledging $800 million in investments.
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
