From the article: [...] [...] [...] (Lots more detail in the article.)
From the article:
Secure in its military victory, Damascus now faces an uphill battle for economic survival. A hollowed-out state increasingly self-finances through graft and predatory governance, while failing to provide even basic support for ordinary citizens and businesses. Such tactics keep the system afloat even as they undercut the economy’s ability to restart.
The regime’s foreign adversaries compound these woes through new rounds of economic punishment. As tightening Western sanctions inflict ever more tangible pain on Syrian society—from crippling fuel shortages to a powerful chilling effect on even benign investments—their political objectives grow more nebulous and implausible. Damascus’ allies are only somewhat more helpful: Determined to keep the regime intact but with no visible interest in a broader revival, Russia and Iran are laying claim instead to their share of the country’s dwindling resources—from oil and phosphates to maritime trade.
Ordinary Syrians are left to suffer the consequences and improvise solutions of their own. Increasingly isolated, they remain relentlessly entrepreneurial in navigating an ever more corrupt and stifling economic climate.
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Having remained comparatively stable throughout the war, the cities of Latakia and Tartous absorbed wave upon wave of displaced people from Homs, Aleppo, and Idlib—an influx that both strained and buoyed the region’s economy in a time of stagnation. A hotel manager in Tartous—whose economy has for decades relied on tourists visiting the coast’s Mediterranean beaches—stressed the paradox: “The period from 2012 to 2017 was a bad time for tourism. But even so, all the hotels and resorts were rented out by displaced families.”
Newcomers included traders and industrialists from Aleppo and Homs—two erstwhile transit hubs and manufacturing centers laid low by siege and bombardment. Such individuals frequently brought their small- and medium-sized businesses with them, palpably accelerating the region’s economic activity. A resident of Latakia described how a street that comprised only shuttered shops before 2011 now buzzes with activity, thanks to Aleppans who rented and re-opened every last storefront.
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Another fault-line divides established elites and wartime profiteers seeking to launder their wealth in the regular economy. This particular schism takes on an unmistakable sectarian hue, as predominantly Alawi nouveaux riche break into markets historically controlled by Sunnis and Christians. Yet this shift also fuels pragmatic collaboration, in a symbiotic relationship where longstanding business figures contribute their expertise while upstarts supply fresh cash and connections to the security apparatus.
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(Lots more detail in the article.)