Bashar Al-Assad, the president of Syria, has said he is in talks with China to join its Belt and Road Initiative, as he looks for funding to rebuild the country after eight years of civil war.
The United Nations has estimated the cost of damage in the war-stricken country at more than $388 billion, and the cost of lost productivity to GDP at around $268 billion. Most experts agree that it will take at least a decade to repair the war damage.
China has for years been trying to revive historic trading links with the Middle East through its Belt and Road initiative, a $1 trillion overseas investment plan. Beijing, which has backed Assad’s Damascus regime against the opposition, has become the largest source of foreign investment in the region since signing deals with Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among others. Oil-rich Syria was invited to attend a summit on the initiative for the first time in April.
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