DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Syrian war has entered its 13th year. 12 long years were enough to drain the state’s economic and social structure and transform it from an established, self-sufficient, productive state into a country surviving on humanitarian aid where its people are displaced across the world.
Additional disasters
Through those years, war was not the only factor that exhausted the Syrian people. Covid-19 came along to aggravate the suffering of the people more than others.
International disasters lurked around the lives of Syrians. The Russian–Ukrainian war has impacted the devastated Syrians indirectly. The war caused immense high prices of products as Syria depended on importing to secure food and fuel.
The 2020 Caesar Act added fuel to the fire, making Syrians poorer and worsening the already deteriorating economic situation.
The Syrian people welcomed a new year with an earthquake that made them long for past years of war and fighting. The casualties caused in seconds surpassed those of long years of war.
Ali Kanaan, an economist, estimated the initial damage of the earthquake by at least $ 50 billion.
Terrifying drainage
The most prominent phenomenon since the beginning of the war and until now is the internal and external immigration from the country. At first, people fled the war and the fighting, but when battles came to an end, the economic circumstances, poverty, and unknown future were the most notable factors for immigration from Syria.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development described the displacement in Syria as ” the largest displacement crisis since the Second World War.” The impact of the Syrian crisis reached neighboring countries and world economies, not only the Syrian economy.
UN and official estimations indicate that since 2011 over one-third of the population moved internally to safer areas or governorates, which is at least 6.7 million individuals. Meanwhile, unofficial estimates showed that more than 5.6 million individuals immigrated abroad.
The massive figures of immigrants led to a major drainage in the Syrian human capital. Successive governments failed to come up with solutions that promise a new future to stop this drainage.
Syrian Pound devalued by 99 percent
The war and what came along with it were enough to down the incomes of 92 percent of the Syrian people under the poverty line. Since the beginning of 2011, the Syrian pound’s value dropped by 99.3 percent against the US dollar, dropping from 50 to 7.000 SYP. The value of the USD against the Syrian pound rose by 13.900 percent.
The rise of the exchange rate happened occasionally. The value of the Syrian pound against the USD dropped in 2019 from 450 to 2.500 in 2021 and 6.900 in 2022. Then recently it reached 7.000 in an official pricing.
An economic researcher told North Press that the decline of the Syrian pound is mainly due to economic sanctions on banks and the prevention of external transfers, disruption of exports, and increasing costs of imports.
Inflation and increasing prices
Increasing prices was the main daily event in the lives of Syrians. Prices doubled more than 2.500 times, and inflation levels skyrocketed. The Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics’ data showed that the annual inflation rate of 2020 compared to 2019 rose by 163 percent. The rate has increased even more since then.
The required income for families to be under the poverty line is no less than a million SYP. Transparency International set the poverty line for 2022 at 3 million SYP at minimum. Meanwhile, the best income in government jobs does not reach 200.000 SYP combined with the incentives an employee might get.
Even though salaries were raised a few times, however, they remained under the required amount. Economic experts noted that the minimum amount needed to pull employees out of poverty is to double wages more than 100 times.
Food insecurity
Syria has been classified as a globally low-income state since 2018. Gross domestic product (GDP) declined by more than half, and per capita national income has declined.
Cumulative GDP losses between 2011 and 2016 were estimated at $226 billion, about four times Syria’s GDP in 2010.
By reviewing some of the data contained in the four surveys carried out by government institutions in cooperation with the World Food Programme (WFP), 2020 data show that among families with severe food insecurity (8.3 percent of the country’s total families), about 14.1 percent witnessed having no food once or twice a month, 26 percent of the same households experienced one of their members staying without food for a full day (for ten times or more a month), and 17 percent of these families, one member is hungry for one or more days a month.
Production halted
Domestic production declined every day during years of war in Syria for multiple reasons, such as the targeting and robbing of many factories by Turkey. An economic and manufacturing expert explains other reasons.
The source explained that when the war happened, many businessmen, manufacturers, and capital owners evaded government measures in the ministries of Ration and Customs and the Central Bank’s policy of restricting the free withdrawal or transfer of funds, which created many obstacles in business, prompting capital owners to resort to evasion.
He added that some of the internal reasons for the poor production was the spread of checkpoints inside cities and between governorates as a security measure that was popular during the first years of the war. In addition to extreme measures of Customs and Ration ministries against stores and when transporting goods on the road, all these made businessmen flee, which led to a decline in production.
Decline of imports
The decline in production was accompanied by a reduction in public spending, with Syrian imports falling from 2011 to 2022 by 78.11 percent.
An economic expert told North Press that the value of the amount of Syrian imports in 2011 reached $19.8 billion, to fall by 38.3 percent in 2012.
The source added that the unstable security and the Syrian government losing more territory in 2013, 2014, 2015 led to significant reduction in the amount of imports.
The value of imports declined from $8.5 billion in 2013 to $5.5 billion in 2015. Then it dropped to $3.8 billion at the end of October 2022.
Decline of exports
Exports were not in better conditions. The source said the value of exports dropped by 94 percent.
Syrian exports declined significantly since the beginning of the war. The value of exported domestic products in 2010 reached over $12 billion but dropped to $696 million by 2022. The lowest value, $325 million, was in 2018.
Psychological diseases
Long years of war and bad economic conditions in Syria had negative psychological impacts on the majority of the Syrian people. Ayman Daaboul, the director of the Ibn Sina Hospital in Damascus, stated that the daily patient rate ranges from 20 to 30 cases due to psychological stress and economic factors.
The director’s statement came before the February 6 earthquake, which significantly doubled the number of people in need of psychological help as the majority suffer from an inability to sleep, fear, and constant stress aggravated by difficult living conditions.
Total collapse
Many followers believe that nothing is the same in Syria except its name following the collapse of different sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, and services, in addition to the decline in agriculture and industry. Syria, a country known for exporting wheat, now imports it. It changed from an importer of medication to a country where its people find difficulty in securing smuggled drugs.