To overcome export obstacles. Government plan to modernize the land freight fleet

The Minister of Transport, Dr. Yaroub Badr, confirmed that the file of modernizing the land freight fleet in Syria represents one of the most prominent challenges facing the transport sector and the local economy at the moment.

In a  statement to SANA, Badr explained that the technical obsolescence suffered by a large percentage of working trucks, and the high costs of operation and maintenance, are directly reflected in the efficiency of transporting goods and the ability of the Syrian carrier to compete regionally and internationally, which requires organized government intervention to raise the efficiency of supply chains.

Funding Programs

The Minister of Transport announced that the Ministry is moving to find concessional financing formulas in cooperation with banking entities that allow truck owners, the majority of whom are low-income, to obtain long-term loans ranging from five to ten years.

Badr explained that the treatment includes the expansion of automation, the development of transport services and the regulation of the movement of goods, pointing out that the ministry is studying fair and stable financing alternatives to avoid the requirement of some supplier companies to meet the installments in US dollars, which constitutes an operational burden on the carriers.

Challenge size

In a  similar statement, Khaled Kasha, director of the Directorate of Cargo Regulation at the Ministry of Transport, revealed figures  that illustrate the magnitude of the challenge, indicating that the Syrian fleet includes more than 42,000 trucks with a total weight of more than 11 tons, and the percentage of modern trucks does not exceed 25% (about 7,000 trucks only), which means that 75% of the fleet needs to be replaced or renewed.

He said   that the number of trucks weighing more than 3.5 tons is more than 245,000 trucks, 62% of which are over 20 years old, while the percentage of trucks that are less than ten years old does not exceed 1%.

Replacement Plan

The Ministry of Transport has developed a gradual plan to replace at least 10% of obsolete trucks annually to complete the refurbishment within seven years.

The directorate's estimated calculations indicated that  the cost of replacing about 3,300 heavy trucks annually from the categories manufactured in China (at a price ranging between $60,000 and $75,000 per truck) reaches $231 million annually, while the estimated annual cost rises to $412.5 million in the case of relying on European or American categories (at a price ranging from $100,000 to $150,000 per truck), which highlights the size of the financing challenge, which requires the activation of financial leasing tools and special support funds.

Operational Indicators

According to the Ministry of Transport, land transport recorded  strong operational indicators despite the limited current technical capabilities, as the volume of goods transported internally and externally via Syrian trucks during the first quarter of 2026 reached more than 4.63 million tons, with an average rate of about 50 thousand tons per day.

The land freight sector in Syria is facing accumulated technical and economic repercussions resulting from the years of war and the accompanying severe economic blockade of importing modern cargo vehicles or original spare parts for European and American trucks, which has led to an increase in the average operational life of the majority of the national fleet to exceed two decades. Land freight lines are the main lung for Syria's agricultural and industrial exports to neighboring markets such as Iraq and the Gulf countries through border crossings.