An aging Sadiq Ghrawi supervising works at the Syrian Company for Biscuits and Chocolate in 1966. Ghrawi was a prominent industrialist who financed the nationalist movement under the French Mandate. The company was inspired by Prime Minister Khalid al-Azm, before he was toppled in 1963, who complained that the Syrians should stop importing their biscuits from Lebanon and start producing inside Syria. He got Ghrawi to start the business, which was the first joint-venture company in Syria, but the company was nationalized by the Baathist regime that came to power in the 1960s.