STC wins Silklink: Syria's first major telecom investment since the war
Saudi Arabia's stc takes a 75% stake in Syria's ~$800 million national fibre project — 4,500 km of cable, data centres and cable landing stations.
JJ Ying / UnsplashSaudi telecoms group stc won the bid to run Syria's 'Silklink' project, acquiring a 75% stake for three billion Saudi riyals (about $800 million). The project will build a 4,500 km fibre-optic network, plus data centres and submarine-cable landing stations.
Why it's a milestone
The deal marks the first major foreign direct investment into the reconstruction of Syria's telecoms network, parts of which were destroyed during a 15-year war. National fibre and cable landing stations are the backbone everything else — mobile data, cloud, payments — eventually runs on.
Alongside Silklink, the BarqNet initiative targets nationwide broadband, signalling a coordinated rebuild of the country's core connectivity.