هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
On the eve of a full year since signing the French CMA CGM Group signed a contract with the Syrian government to develop and operate the Port of Latakia with an investment of 230 million euros, the group decided to inject an additional 200 million euros to increase the port’s capacity, according to what was revealed by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa during his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Damascus on July 7.
This investment has once again cast the spotlight on the port that, for decades, served as Syria’s main maritime outlet, with its trajectory tied to the transformations of the state and the economy, from expansion projects to the war years and the bets on reconstruction.
It also raises questions about why the port is considered one of Syria’s most important strategic assets, which calls for a look back at its history to understand how its economic value was shaped over more than seven decades.
Syria’s gateway to the Mediterranean
The Port of Latakia is located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the city of Latakia, and it has been Syria’s main seaport since its establishment in its modern form in the 1950s.
On Feb. 12, 1950, the General Company of the Port of Latakia was established as a joint sector entity under the Ministry of Economy and was tasked with building and investing in the port. In 1974, it was transferred to the Ministry of Transport, before becoming a public company in 1982.
Construction of the port was carried out in two phases: the first between 1954 and 1958, and the second between 1974 and 1985, leading to its current structure.
Meanwhile, the Arab World Encyclopedia notes that the modern port was established in 1956 and included berths and grain silos that at the time constituted Syria’s largest maritime facility. It received between 1,200 and 1,500 ships annually, and imports remained heavier and more valuable than exports, especially after grain exports stopped in the mid-1960s.
The port as a national priority
From the outset, the port was designed to be connected to the railway network, linking the coast to inland areas and reinforcing its role as a gateway for Syrian trade. From its earliest years, it was seen as one of the main pillars of the country’s economic development projects.
In a report prepared by the World Bank in the 1950s, as it studied the Syrian government’s request for financing to develop the port, the project was considered a national priority because of its role as Syria’s maritime artery, the main gateway for imports, and the launching point for exports. It was also treated as part of the national transport system, which included railways, roads, land transport, and storage facilities.
As foreign trade expanded over the following decades, the port’s capacity began to lag behind the growing volume of goods, leading to crowded berths, long waiting times for ships, slow loading and unloading operations, limited depth at some berths, and a shortage of equipment — all of which raised shipping costs and reduced handling efficiency.
As foreign trade continued to grow, World Bank estimates in the 1970s showed that the port was operating close to its maximum capacity, with throughput reaching about 1.3 million tons annually compared with a capacity of roughly 1.5 million tons.
As a result, plans were proposed to expand the port and raise its capacity to about 3 million tons annually in preparation for the expected increase in imports and exports.
In 1988, the port underwent the largest expansion in its modern history, including the construction of new berths, dredging navigation basins to receive larger ships, expanding storage yards, developing the container terminal, and equipping it with modern cranes and handling equipment. The move aimed to increase its capacity, keep pace with expected growth in foreign trade, and cement its position as the most important maritime artery of the Syrian economy.
The year 2009 also marked another pivotal milestone in the port’s history, when the French CMA CGM Group took over the management and operation of the container terminal under a contract signed with the Syrian government at the time and renewed more than once. The company continued operating the terminal until the new contract for developing and operating the port was reached, expanding the scope of its investments.
A commercial and tourism gateway
The importance of the Port of Latakia stems from the fact that most of Syria’s maritime trade passes through it, accounting for 70 percent of total ship calls and 83 percent of total deadweight tonnage, according to a report titled “Syria at a Crossroads: Toward a Stabilized Transition,” issued by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, or ESCWA, in January 2025.
Maritime trade data also point to Syria’s diminished role in regional trade. In 2023, Syrian ports recorded only 251 calls, compared with 2,974 calls at neighboring Lebanon’s ports, even though Lebanon’s population is less than a quarter of Syria’s.
In terms of deadweight tonnage, Syrian ports handled only 4 million tons, compared with 70 million tons in Lebanon.
Syria’s maritime trade also depends directly on neighboring countries. For example, 59 percent of ships reporting entry into Syrian ports in 2023 came from Turkey or Lebanon, while 69 percent of ships departing Syrian ports sailed to those two countries.
Between 2000 and 2010, the port also served as an important stop for maritime tourism, receiving a number of cruise ships that linked it to ports in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Egypt, according to the website of “Bahhar Shipping”, a private Syrian shipping and maritime agency company and the oldest shipping agency still operating in Syria.
According to the site, the port serves multiple economic sectors, receiving container ships, oil tankers, Ro-Ro vessels, general cargo ships, and bulk cargo vessels.
A logistics smuggling hub
The transformations the Port of Latakia underwent over the past decade were not limited to the decline of its commercial role. They also extended to the nature of the activities passing through it, as it turned during the war years into a cross-border logistics smuggling hub.
The Captagon trade was the most prominent file associated with the Port of Latakia during those years. According to an investigation by The New York Times based on interviews with security officials and counternarcotics experts, a large share of Captagon shipments later seized in Europe and the Gulf departed through the port, while other shipments took overland routes through Lebanon or Jordan before being re-exported.
The report explained that the port was the final link in an integrated logistics chain that began with production labs in different parts of Syria, passed through packaging, concealment, and land transport centers, and ended with containers being shipped through the port to foreign destinations.
A separate investigation published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, reached similar conclusions, explaining that the networks relied on a complex system to conceal the identities of those involved. This included the use of shell companies, firms registered in different countries, shipping documents under names that were difficult to verify, as well as ship owners, shipping agents, and clearance companies. Shipments were also hidden inside legitimate goods, making them harder to detect.
The investigation notes that a growing number of Captagon shipments linked to Latakia were seized in the ports of Italy, Greece, Romania, and Libya. The most notable was the seizure of more than 14 tons of Captagon at Italy’s Port of Salerno in June 2020, one of the world’s largest busts at the time, with Italian authorities estimating its value at about 1 billion euros.
From time to time, the Syrian regime government would announce that it had foiled attempts to smuggle drug shipments through the port, in a striking paradox with international investigations accusing figures and networks linked to the ousted regime of playing a central role in producing and exporting Captagon.
The smuggling activities linked to the port were not limited to drugs. Other press reports spoke of a rise in the smuggling of consumer goods, foodstuffs, and construction materials from Syria to Lebanon via the maritime line between Latakia and Beirut, outside official customs channels.
With the political landscape in Syria changing, the security dimension associated with the port has not disappeared. Since the new administration took office, the Interior Ministry has announced the seizure of drug shipments inside it, including one shipment arriving from Brazil. Syrian and Turkish authorities also announced a joint operation that resulted in the seizure of a ship carrying narcotic substances coming from Southeast Asia.
These incidents show that the strategic location of the Port of Latakia, which made it Syria’s trade gateway for decades, also makes it a constant magnet for smuggling networks and organized crime, posing a dual challenge to any effort to rehabilitate it and restore its economic role.
Damascus’ outlet to the Gulf
The importance of the Port of Latakia stems not only from its location on the Mediterranean Sea, but also from its position at the meeting point between the sea and the land corridors leading to Damascus, and from there to Jordan and Gulf markets.
Specialized studies explain this importance through what is known economically as the “hinterland” — the inland area served by the port through roads, railways, and supply chains. The value of ports is tied to their ability to serve this economic sphere, not only to the size of their berths or their capacity.
From this perspective, the Port of Latakia constitutes the natural maritime outlet for Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, with the potential for its sphere of influence to extend to Jordan and Iraq if regional connectivity projects are completed, in addition to its role in serving the Syrian coast.
Economic estimates indicate that this location gives Syria an important logistical advantage, as the distance between its ports and the Jordanian and Iraqi interior does not exceed about 500 kilometers in some stretches, reducing the time and cost of transporting goods compared with some longer maritime routes.
Accordingly, Syria is viewed not only as a final market for goods, but also as a land bridge and transit corridor linking the eastern Mediterranean to Arab markets, enhancing its chances of becoming a regional logistics hub.
Recent developments reinforce this view, with the resumption of transit truck traffic through Syrian territory toward Jordan, the passage of Turkish commercial convoys toward Arab countries, and the use of Syrian territory to transport Iraqi oil to Mediterranean ports.
These indicators suggest that the economic hinterland of the Port of Latakia may not in the future be limited to Syrian cities, but could extend to Iraq and Jordan, and perhaps to Gulf markets if regional connectivity projects are completed.
This vision is supported by a study prepared by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, which concluded that developing the Port of Latakia is tied not only to expanding berths and increasing capacity, but also to integrating it with the road and railway network and improving the management of truck and cargo movement, turning it into an integrated logistics hub serving regional transit traffic.
The study sees the port’s location as qualifying it to play a larger role in serving trade with neighboring countries, especially Iraq, amid expectations of rising cargo flows linked to reconstruction.
This vision also aligns with the conclusions of the World Economic Forum in its report titled “Why Syria’s economic reintegration matters for the Middle East,” which argues that rehabilitating the Port of Latakia and linking it to dry ports, railway networks, and industrial zones could restore Syria’s role as a connector between the Gulf, the Levant, Turkey, and the Mediterranean.
According to the report, this role gains added importance as the region searches for alternatives to trade corridors vulnerable to disruption, such as the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, strengthening the case for Syria’s location as a land crossing linking the Gulf to the Mediterranean.
Mersin and Latakia: Sister ports
Alongside talk of the port’s role in serving Gulf markets, another vision emerged years before the war based on linking it to European transport networks through Turkey.
This vision was not born of the current moment. In the years before 2011, Ankara and Damascus launched joint projects that made Mersin and Latakia two links in a single logistics network.
Turkey has long attached importance to the Port of Latakia as one of the main ports on the eastern Mediterranean coast. But the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, and the subsequent deterioration in relations between the Turkish government and the former regime that controlled the seaports, prevented the completion of the cooperation projects the two countries had begun working on before 2011 and halted a path aimed at integrating Syria into the regional transport and trade network.
At the time, the Turkish vision was based on linking Syria to Turkish and European transport networks through Mersin province, which was presented as the logistical gateway for Syrian exports to Europe. Syrian ports, foremost among them Latakia, were viewed as part of an integrated transport system linking the eastern Mediterranean to regional and international markets.
This orientation is reflected in what Turkey’s then-state minister for foreign trade, Kursad Tuzmen, announced, saying Ankara was aiming to raise trade volume with Syria from about $2 billion to $10 billion, according to Turkish media reports in March 2009.
His remarks coincided with the arrival in Mersin of the first freight train coming from Aleppo province, in a step seen as part of a broader project to develop trade corridors between the two countries.
On the same occasion, Tuzmen announced Turkey’s intention to launch Ro-Ro maritime transport services between the Port of Mersin and Italy’s Port of Trieste, while the head of Turkish State Railways, or TCDD, revealed plans to operate a new railway line between Aleppo and Gaziantep.
In this way, Ankara was working to create an integrated logistics chain beginning in Aleppo, passing through Mersin by rail, and then on to Europe via Ro-Ro sea lines — a vision that made Mersin the hub connecting to European markets, while Syrian ports, foremost among them Latakia, played a complementary role within the trade and transport network of the eastern Mediterranean.
Logistical integration, not competition
Economic relations between Mersin and Latakia did not begin in the post-revolution period. Maritime links between the two cities existed before 2011, when two weekly ferry trips operated between 2006 and 2010. In 2010, Damascus also hosted a “Mersin Day” event with ministers from both countries, alongside joint economic activities and cooperation between the business communities, as part of efforts to strengthen trade and logistical integration between the two sides.
Despite the tense relationship between Ankara and the former Syrian regime, the Regional Coordination Council in Mersin, affiliated with the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, or TMMOB, issued a statement saying that the ports of Mersin, Iskenderun, and Latakia represent the most prominent port centers with potential in the eastern Mediterranean, calling for regional planning that distributes roles among ports according to each one’s advantages, rather than creating competing ports within Turkey.
This statement is particularly significant because it reflects Latakia’s presence in the Turkish conception of the eastern Mediterranean port system despite the ongoing war and sanctions on Syria, even before reconstruction returned to the forefront after liberation.
After the fall of the former regime, the Turkish vision was translated into practical steps with the resumption of direct maritime traffic between Turkey and Syria through the launch of the first voyage of the Ro-Ro vessel Lady Roz, operated by the Turkish shipping company Legend Line, from the Port of Mersin to the Port of Latakia. The move was seen as a sign of the Syrian port’s reintegration into regional trade networks after years of suspension and as a new turning point in efforts to revive Syrian trade and reactivate the country’s commercial movement.
Ro-Ro services are a key element in regional supply chains, linking land transport networks with maritime transport. They are dedicated to carrying trucks, trailers, and commercial vehicles without the need to unload and reload their cargo.
In the case of the Mersin-Latakia route, their main purpose is to facilitate the movement of goods between Turkey and Syria by allowing trucks or cargo-loaded trailers to board the ship directly at the Port of Mersin, cross the sea to the Port of Latakia, and then continue overland within Syria or to other destinations.
Months later, the chambers of commerce of Mersin and Latakia signed an official cooperation protocol, after which Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Hakan Sefa Cakir announced efforts to turn Mersin and Latakia into “sister ports” under a vision based on logistical integration and support for Syria’s reconstruction, according to a press release issued by the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Aug. 5, 2025.
Latakia as a gateway to regional corridors
This orientation was consolidated in May 2026, when a delegation from the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry visited Latakia, where both sides affirmed their desire to rebuild a trade network between the two cities as it had been before the war, while the Turkish delegation described Mersin and Latakia as “two ports that complement one another.”
The Port of Latakia was the main stop on the visit, as the delegation toured its facilities and listened to a presentation by Syrian officials on the possibilities for reviving maritime trade and logistical lines between the two countries, including ship traffic, customs procedures, and prospects for developing maritime transport an indication that interest is no longer limited to reviving trade exchange, but extends to the future of the port and its role within the regional transport network.
After the delegation returned, the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry council reviewed the results of the visit, considering that reopening to Syria creates broad opportunities for Turkish companies. Chamber Chairman Hakan Sefa Cakir linked these opportunities to a broader vision of turning the corridor connecting Iraq, Syria, and Turkey into one of the most important logistical corridors leading to the Gulf states, giving Mersin and Latakia complementary roles in regional trade flows.
The Port of Latakia development project takes on an additional dimension in light of the continued investments of the French CMA CGM Group, especially since the Turkish group Yıldırım Holding owns 24% of the company’s shares.
The Turkish company’s investments in CMA CGM date back about 14 years, when its CEO, Robert Yuksel Yildirim, invested $500 million in the company during a financial crisis caused by debts exceeding $5 billion, in exchange for bonds convertible into 20 percent of its shares. In 2013, the Turkish company injected an additional $100 million, raising its stake to 24 percent, a share it still holds today.
Although this ownership does not mean there is a direct Turkish operational or administrative role in the Port of Latakia, it does reflect an overlap of Turkish and European interests in the future of the port, which has come to be seen as a potential link in the transport and trade network of the eastern Mediterranean.