In an assembly at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, team members launched the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (“GEM”) project in Syria. The national team for the project comprises the Syrian Young Entrepreneurs Association (“SYEA”), the Syrian Trust for Development and the University of Qalamoun.

The project aims to include Syria in the Global Entrepreneurial Indicator report, which will be published in 2009, monitoring the most important challenges and opportunities that the entrepreneurial sector faces in Syria and depicting a clear map of the reality of this sector. The project will provide substantial guidance and important suggestions in order to advance the sector in the future, with the goal of supporting the entrepreneurial environment in Syria.

The launching was an opportunity to exchange experiences about the reality of entrepreneurship in Syria through discussion and answer in the “Questionnaire of National Experts” who attended the assembly, with the results to be used in preparing the GEM annual report to be published in March next year.

SYEA President Abdulsalam Haykal expressed his confidence that the work of the GEM Project Team will form “a model for integrated cooperation between different national institutions so as to effectively contribute to the national development effort, through encouraging entrepreneurs to establish commercial and production projects in various fields, according to their expertise and interests.”

During the opening of the assembly, Mr Haykal explained that SYEA’s proposal for including Syria in the International Entrepreneurial Index comes within “its effort in preparing a suitable environment and support for emerging businesses and entrepreneurial activities”, emphasising the necessity to “remove obstacles which entrepreneurs face in Syria, such as bureaucracy, high operating costs, a shortage of funding opportunities, and the absence of accurate market information.”

“At SYEA, we think that despite an increase in the level and size of support services offered to entrepreneurs by a number of institutions involved, fear of failure still tops the list of obstacles that limit the ability of entrepreneurs in Syria to achieve the desired growth.”

Associate Economic Minister Ghassan Habash said that the Syrian Government “has prepared appropriate legislation for transitioning from a centralised economy to a social market economy.”

Dr. Habash, who represented the vice-president of the Council of Ministers for Economic Affairs Abdullah Al-Dardari as patron of the assembly, presented some of the measures which the Ministry of the Economy adopted to support small and medium-sized entrepreneurial companies in Syria. This includes development of legislation regulating work, simplifying registration procedures, and working to establish a body to supervise these companies.

Dr. Nader Qabbani, Director of the Research Department of the Trust for Syrian Development, said that the Trust participates in the activities of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor via three programs: the Al-Shabaab Project, the Syrian Fund for Rural Development and the Research Department.

Whereas these types of activities are consummate with the general goals and directions of the Trust, the results and reports that will come out of the field surveys may help in establishing an important foundation reflecting the domestic conditions for entrepreneurship in Syria. Additionally, it will place Syria on the global map regarding entrepreneurship through comparing the results with the other member states of the GEM project.

Hani Tarabishi, a delegate from the University of Qalamoun, explained that the participation of the Private University of Qalamoun in the GEM project is “a part of its strategy of contributing to national capacity-building in order to place Syria in the class of countries whose economies depend on knowledge and human skills.”

“The Private University of Qalamoun sees the task of graduating students into the Syrian economy as its first priority,” said Tarabishi. “It is proud to be the first university in Syria teaching entrepreneurs, supporting and nurturing the projects of its students.”

It should be noted that the GEM project is a non-profit academic research union and the largest international institution devoted to high-quality research about the entrepreneurial environment. GEM started its work in 1999 with ten countries participating and reached 43 countries in the past year, including three Arab countries: UAE, Egypt and Yemen.