Syria backs EU-funded initiative to ease business regulations

The Syrian government has approved a new EU-funded initiative to inventory, review and reform the regulatory environment for enterprises in Syria, with the aim of making it easier to do business in the country.

According to a press release, experts from the EU-funded Business Environment Simplification Programme (BESP) introduced a systematic approach to regulatory reform, termed the ‘Regulatory Guillotine', which has been successfully implemented in over 40 countries around the world. The approach focuses on inventorying relevant regulatory information, performing a series of standardised reviews, and recommending changes to existing regulations, to simplify administrative procedures and reduce the information required from business by government.

The process involves the collection of all Legislative Documents (laws, decrees and bylaws) from participating ministries and making these publicly available to the private sector through the establishment of a national Electronic Registry.

Dr. Amer Lutfy, Minister of Economy and Trade and chairman of the BESP Steering Committee, endorsed the proposed initiative, stating: "Without doubt this is an extremely significant part of the macroeconomic reform of the Syrian economy addressing a key pillar of developing a new economic framework for business - the regulatory environment... We shall work through BESP to implement this programme over the next two years to eliminate the many duplications and overlapping of economic regulations and to establish simplified regulations that are appropriate to the modern economy of Syria."

BESP is a €5 million EU‐funded programme (2009‐2013) established by the government of Syria in partnership with the EU Delegation to Syria to contribute to the Syrian economic reform agenda through the improvement and simplification of the business environment in the country in line with national requirements. 

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(ENPI Info Centre) Press release BESP webpage