Syria is a nation with rich history and culture. In fact, Damascus, the capital, is widely believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited capital city in the world. It is a main cultural center of the Levant and the Arab World. The estimated population is around 2 million. Aside from its rich history and culture, Syria has a diversified economy, based on agriculture, industrial, and services sectors. The industrial sectors includes mining, manufacturing, construction, and petroleum. This sector employs 16% of the labour force and accounts for 27% of the GDP. The main industrial products are petroleum, textiles, food processing, beverages, tobacco, phosphate rock mining, cement, oil seeds crushing, and car assembly. Syria also produces about 2% of the world’s phosphate rock output. In addition to phosphate, other major minerals produced in Syria include cement, gypsum, industrial sand (silica), marble, natural crude asphalt, nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, salt, and steal. The eastern part of the country is rich in oil and gas, thus Syria contributes to 0.5% of the total global oil production.