According to The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), Syrians have started a total of 4,963 companies and exceeded TL 700 million ($260 million) in the total amount of investments made over the past five and a half years.

Assoc. Dr. Çağrı Bulut, from Yaşar University's Department of Business and Administration, said the number of companies established by Syrian entrepreneurs keeps rising, constituting 10 percent of the country's total number of foreign-capital firms.

Bulut noted that Syrians, who launched 81 companies with TL 11 million capital in 2011, have increased the number of companies to 4,963 over the past five and half years and made over TL 700 million in investments.

Saying that the number of companies launched by Syrians has reached 1,371 in the first nine months of the year, and that the community is preferring active centers of industry and trade such as Istanbul, Gaziantep, Mersin, Hatay and Bursa, Bulut said the investments have particularly focused on construction, real estate, restaurant management, auto service and wholesale and retail sectors.

Stressing that asylum-seeking entrepreneurs have established their own businesses by assessing the opportunities related to their own citizens and people living in their current cities as the target market, Assoc. Dr. Bulut said a majority of these entrepreneurs will be permanent in Turkey after receiving the residential permit through their companies. Noting that the same kind of behavioral pattern is also seen in the citizens of Middle Eastern countries who migrate to Europe through official channels, he suggested that innovative and entrepreneurial new policies focused on Turkey's growing refugee population should be designed and implemented immediately. It seems possible for the current economic data to be included in the system through new regulations, such as micro-entrepreneurship for foreigners, Bulut said, suggesting that micro-credit or micro-finance applications provided for small-scale enterprises could be also designed for Syrians.