Displaying items by tag: Syrian Economic Crisis

The “National Dialogue Conference” held last Tuesday, February 25, 2025, concluded with a final statement that included 18 items, which addressed some of the most fundamental issues that occupy the Syrian street. With the issuance of the statement and the end of the meeting, which was limited to two days, one day for introductions and one day for working, it is possible to provide an overall assessment of the experience. Perhaps might be useful to organize the evaluation by listing the basic pros and cons, then go to the conclusions.

Topics such as civil peace, arms control, transitional justice, preparations for the national conference, the transitional government, political pluralism, democracy, the required constitution, and foreign relations of the new Syria occupy an important space in public debate among politicians, intellectuals, and the media. They are all, without a doubt, important topics for Syria’s present and future, and preoccupy all Syrians. However, they do not constitute, at this moment, the greatest obsession and concern for the overwhelming majority of Syrians.

With the end of the first quarter of 2023, and since before the beginning of the month of Ramadan, Syrians have directly witnessed significant increases in the prices of various necessary basic commodities. The average cost of living for a Syrian family of 5 has increased according to Kassioun index for the costs of living to jump to more than 5.6 million Syrian pounds (the minimum has reached 3,546,083 Syrian pounds). All this is happening while the minimum of wages (92,970 Syrian pounds, i.e., less than $13 a month) is still very meager and insufficient to actually cover anything from the basics of life.

It has now been three weeks since the earthquake catastrophe. While the space the disaster occupies in the media and politically is gradually receding, the reality reveals every day new depths of the disaster, as well as tremendous pain and suffering that is crushing the bones of (survivors), if it is correct to describe those who were not killed by the earthquake as survivors.

Syrians want an immediate and urgent solution; they want an end to the catastrophe and the trail of pains they are treading. It is no longer important for them to even think about why things have gotten to the way they have. All they think about is how to get to salvation.

The government has raised the prices of bread and medicines, and raised the pricing of imports: oils, poultry feed, powdered milk, and sugar. This was something expected and it will continue, as the government is managing the affairs of the most powerful: importers; as a vital area for the powers of influence and intrusion, and industrialists at a lower level; as they still have some significance. However, there are 15 million helpless human beings left outside of the government’s considerations. After all, the government rules in favour of the system, and the system only sees society according to how much money and power it has.

On May 19, Law No.18 of 2021 called “the New Investment Law” was issued, which is the third “general” legislation for investment after Law No.10 of 1991, and Decree No.8 of 2007.

When Syrian business owners talk about their coping mechanisms and the continuation of their business under the extreme Syrian conditions, one saying is repeated: «the wages of workers have decreased». This fact is the only «positive factor» for the business sector in Syria, as all costs have increased: raw materials, transportation, money transfer, corruption costs and others, but workers have remained with their wages, or more precisely «with their hunger», snatching away the remnants of the Syrian production!

Ten years and our crisis is still ongoing, and the deterioration of the value of the Syrian pound that we see in the increase of the level of prices is its most prominent economic epitome, as it reflects the overall economic, social and political deterioration as well. This insane high rocketing in prices means that poverty is practically reaching more than 85% of Syrians, and also hunger reaching nearly two-thirds of Syrians across the country. It is also an expression of mega-rich people's protection of their wealth through their commodities that preserve their value, most notably: the dollar and gold.

The Energy crisis is the epitome of all current crises, as it practically reflects the crisis of the Syrian pound and the inability of the funds available in the national currency to secure the needs of importing the mainstay of production, which is represented in oil. It also reflects the crisis of the decline in the economic and social role of the state apparatus and its inability to secure the basics, in addition to the state of production paralysis affecting the country. The worst, is that all the current indications show that the energy crisis cannot be seriously solved with such resources and such performance.