Forms of financing for Syrian-owned businesses in Turkey and financing difficulties

The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the main sources of funding of the Syrian owned projects established in Turkey, and the barriers and challenging factors that face the Syrian entrepreneurs to secure their funds and keep their projects continuity. According to the literature, five main resources have been identified to be the sources of funding for the refugees in their new countries of resettlements. Namely; personal savings, support from the related diaspora, local partnership, non-governmental organizations and the international aid and donors. Those five sources have been categorized under two main branches as self-assisted and official development assisted categories for ease of discussion and results presentations. A total of 250 Syrian owned projects in Gaziantep city have been analyzed using ordinal regression analysis, distributed between all the aforementioned categories. Findings suggested that, the projects under the first category have less resilience and withstanding against the external factors and challenges than the second one. In terms of challenges, the results show a high relationship between the external factors on the project continuity and fund securing and withstanding. Such as the Legal and Regulatory Hurdles, the Political and Economic Instability as well the restrictions on the asset ownership and the discrimination and prejudice due to the civil status which can impact the ability to attract investors and gain credibility in the business community. Whereas, language and cultural barriers, integration challenges, lack of access to the market information in addition to the degree of the collateral or a reliable credit history in Turkey have been determined as the most significant individual factors that affect the project fund gain and resilience. The findings and conclusions from this research could be used by the policy makers in the refugee host communities as well the designers of the programs that aims to engage the refugees economically in their new homes, and to the researchers in refugees' affairs in general.