Postcard from industrial Aleppo: How Syria’s hollowed-out northern powerhouse is coming back to life

In Assad regime Syria, even mentioning US dollars could get you into serious trouble, enough to land you in prison.

Syrians developed codewords for the greenback – "parsley", "mint" or just “the green”.

It will come as little surprise, then, that conducting business could be tough. Often reliant on dollar-based imports and exports, industrialists trod a fine line between obtaining the materials they needed from abroad and avoiding the notoriously corrupt and violent security services.

As sanctions aimed at punishing the regime strangled the economy, foreign trade and investment attraction became even more difficult.

But since the fall of the regime last year, Syrians no longer have to speak in whispers about buying goods in US dollars, enabling business links with the wider world. And with the government in Damascus keen to build ties with foreign investors and trade partners, some factories in Aleppo’s Sheikh Najjar industrial city say they have already expanded production.

Ghazwa Al Ahmed, a manager at Akkad Carpet and Yarn, walks through a spotless office with gleaming glass-walled rooms. In the neighbouring factory, scores of yarn cylinders line up and workers inspect rugs emerging from weaving machines.

From here, the firm manufactures carpets and yarns for domestic consumption in Syria and exports to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. The firm operated under the former regime but things have become easier since last December following the offensive led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS).

“Compared to previous years, our production is high and it has become easier to secure raw materials,” Ms Al Ahmed told The National. “These things have become easier to obtain and deliver to us. Before, they were delivered but it took a long time to reach us due to many factors. Now we place an order and it is delivered to us directly, whether from Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or any other country.”

The industrial zone is trying to attract new investors. Photo: Lizzie Porter / The National

Sitting in the heart of historical trading routes, Aleppo has been a commercial centre for thousands of years, from antiquity through to the Ottoman and modern-day periods. Before Syria’s civil war, the city had a population exceeding two million and was the country’s industrial capital, home to producers of textiles, food and chemicals.

The status quo in Aleppo’s industrial secto