Shafaq News- Damascus
Syria is moving ahead with plans to rehabilitate severalmajor highways to modernize its network and strengthen domestic andcross-border connectivity, the head of the General Establishment for RoadTransport said on Sunday.
Director General Moaz Najjar said the projects willfacilitate the movement of goods and agricultural and industrial productsbetween Syrian provinces, reduce obstacles to land transport, and lowershipping costs. He added that upgrading the road corridors will increasetransit traffic with neighboring countries, boosting regional and domestictrade while enhancing competitiveness.
Najjar said Jordan, Turkiye, Iraq, and the Gulf States willbe among the main regional beneficiaries of the scheme, noting that theNassib-Aleppo highway forms part of the international M45 corridor linking theJordanian and Turkish borders.
According to Najjar, work on the Nassib-Damascus highway isexpected 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. Therehabilitation and expansion of the Damascus-Palmyra and Palmyra-Deir ez-Zorhighways is expected to take approximately 900 days.
Regarding commercial transport routes, he pointed out thatthe General Establishment for Road Transport is updating the economicfeasibility studies for the North-South and East-West route projects ahead oftheir implementation as toll roads under the build-operate-transfer (BOT)model, aiming to improve commercial transport infrastructure and enhancefreight movement across Syria.
