On Aug. 29-30, the seventh meeting of the Belarusian-Syrian Commission on Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation convened in Damascus. The event was co-chaired by Pavel Utiupin, the minister of industry of Belarus, and Suahail Mohammad Abdullatif, the Syrian minister of public works and housing. The meeting produced seven documents on a wide range of issues. These included the following: foreign trade, marketing and pricing; radio and TV communications; high education and academic science; investment; agriculture; veterinary service; and health care and the production and exchange of medicines. In December 2018, the 11th meeting of a similar commission with Russia took place in Damascus. Against the background of rising complaints from the local Syrian business community about slow progress in the business-to-business format with Russia in the aftermath of that meeting — the 49-year rental of the Tartus seaport that emerged from that meeting doesn’t count, given the amount of political will behind it — August's meeting with the Belarusians heated up speculation over whether Minsk is actually competing with its ally, Moscow, in Syria.

On Aug. 28, Utiupin and Belarusian Health Minister Vladimir Karanik joined Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis at the opening ceremony of the 61st Damascus International Fair. They visited the “Made in Belarus” exposition, which housed 14 industrial, science and technology, medical and food enterprises, among them the Minsk Tractor Works, the Minsk Automobile Plant, the Minsk Motor Plant, the Sohra Group, the BelMAPO medical academy and the NatiVita pharmaceutical company. Russia was represented by 16 companies — a stark contrast with the 37 enterprises present at the fair last year when the Russian delegation was headed by the deputy minister of industry and trade. Both Russia and Belarus were well behind Iran in representation — nearly 100 Iranian companies participated.

Syria has established active bilateral business councils with both Russia and Belarus as part of its effort to establish business-to-business connections and generate mutual projects with the two countries. Yet a few Syrian entrepreneurs from medium-sized companies, who spoke with Al-Monitor not for attribution, said there are more favorable conditions for business travel to Belarus than to Russia, including obtaining the procedures to receive entry visas. Some businesspeople inaugurated small investment projects in the Belarusian countryside for organic food production by first purchasing former Soviet agro-farms. In 2018, the trade between Belarus and Syria grew to $41.1 million (with Belarusian exports worth $37.7 million, compared with just $6.3 million in 2017). In January-May of this year, the mutual trade was greater than $16 million (with Belarusian exports at $12.6 million). Interestingly, Syrian duty free shops became filled with Boss and other brands of Belarusian (but not Russian) vodkas, competing with the French vodka Grey Goose.

In the absence of Syrian arrangements with Russia in the sphere of health care, Belarus is trying to intensify such cooperation and to gradually convert it into an exclusive one. This is why the list of seven agreements recently signed in Damascus included an executive protocol for a road map for implementing an agreement signed in May 2016 between the Syrian and Belarusian health ministries for the production and mutual supply of medicines and medical equipment.