Astronomical price tag

Putting Syria back together after so much violence will be a staggering, if not impossible task complicated by Bashar Al Assad’s continued rule.

Nearly half-a-million people have been killed, according to SOHR, and half of the pre-war population of 23 million has been displaced

in the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, according to the United Nations.

The economy lost $226 billion in gross domestic product between 2011 and the end of 2016,

or about four times 2010 output, according to the World Bank. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed, electricity supply is spotty in major cities, and

youth unemployment has soared to 78 per cent, according to the bank.

Al Assad last year estimated the economic damage from the war at more than $200 billion. But although the scale of destruction is so vast, big donors won’t be rushing to send reconstruction money, analysts said.

They’re “very concerned to put money in ways that will end up enabling the regime that is responsible for all the atrocities we know of,” Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre said.

Instead of “coherent programmes, big money tied up with the World Bank and big companies,” expect smallerscale reconstruction projects and trade pacts, Butter added. Syria’s first international trade fair in five years last month offered a taste of what may come: Egypt agreed to buy apples, India may set up a pharmaceutical company and Iraq signed million-dollar contracts.