In 1995, under the leadership Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez al-Assad, Syria was prospering at a slow rate, but prospering nonetheless; levels of tourism to the country were higher than ever, foreign investment in the country was on the rise, and Syria, now in dialogue with the US and Israel, was becoming less politically isolated. Yet problems still remained; there was only one central government bank, which made investment near impossible, technical inefficiencies caused production to remain slow, and political opposition was all but absent. ABC Australia reports from the capital Damascus on a country that now fills the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Produced by ABC Australia