By Timour Azhari

DOHA (Reuters) -Major Saudi Arabian firms are planning billion-dollar investments in Syria as part of the kingdom’s business-forward approach to the country’s recovery, but U.S. sanctions and a fractured Syrian state apparatus pose formidable obstacles.

Among the companies looking to break into the market are Saudi renewable energy major ACWA Power and state telecoms firm STC, said Abdullah Mando, CEO of the new Saudi-Syrian Business Council. The plan is to start with the basics in Syria’s war-torn economy by rebuilding energy, financial and telecoms infrastructure, he said.

“The goal is to drive … billions of dollars of actual capital to Syria within the next five years,” he told Reuters in Riyadh this week, at the Future Investment Initiative conference that brings to

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