Metallicity may play an important role in the symbiotic phenomenon. Unfortunately, chemical abundances of symbiotic stars have been thus far poorly studied. Ongoing abundance analysis of a sample of over 30 symbiotic stars based on high-resolution, near-infrared spectra obtained with the Phoenix spectrometer on Gemini South telescope will allow for the first time to address properly the metallicity problem as well as provide important information about the past history of these binaries.