Syria has banned most imports except raw materials and grains, local businessmen said on Saturday, in a move to preserve foreign currency reserves as pressure grows from a popular rebellion and Western sanctions against Syria’s rulers.
The government decreed on Thursday that all imports carrying a tariff over 5 percent were banned, according to businessmen and traders in Damascus who were contacted by journalists.
This means imports of most foreign goods, from electrical goods to cars and luxury items.
The ban suggests that Syria is feeling the effect of foreign sanctions intended to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end a six-month military crackdown that has killed 2,700 people, according to UN estimates.
On Saturday, the EU imposed sanctions on Syria’s main mobile phone operator Syriatel and its largest private company, Cham Holding.
The sanctions also targeted a television station, Addounia TV, and three construction and investment firms linked to the Syrian military, according to the EU’s Official Journal.
The moves complement an embargo on imports of Syrian crude oil to the bloc — Syria’s main market — and a ban on EU firms investing in Syria’s oil industry, agreed to last week with the aim of reducing Assad’s access to foreign currency.
Washington has gone further, freezing all Syrian assets in the US and barring US citizens from making new investments in Syria.
Analysts and traders say Syria’s oil exports have almost ground to a halt. In addition, it appears likely to run short of petroleum products for heating, electricity production and transport.
Syrian Minister of Economy and Trade Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar was quoted in the local press on Saturday as saying that the import ban was “preventive and temporary.”
He said the ban was aimed at “preserving foreign reserves and redirecting [them] to low-income sectors of the population.”
“It won’t affect the imports of raw materials or foodstuffs and all the essential goods that citizens need in their daily life,” Shaar added.
Grain bought by the state for local consumption is among items unaffected by the ban.
In the five years prior to the uprising, Syria had relaxed its previous Soviet-style ban on imports.
Despite high import tariffs, there has been huge demand for foreign consumer goods, especially cars, which began to enter the country for the first time in decades.
Like other foreign media, Reuters is banned from Syria, but traders contacted from abroad said the import ban would stoke inflation and further erode falling business confidence.
Some businessmen said it was a sign that the unrest was beginning to exact a heavier toll than was being acknowledged by authorities, who say Syria’s economy has been protected by its lack of debt and insulation from capital markets.
“There is no selling or buying. It’s so bad now that traders and businessmen are not selling for cash or credit. Prices of existing foreign imports will now soar,” said a car dealer in Damascus’ Sabaa Bahrat commercial area, who preferred not to give his name.
Along with hurting industrial output, the unrest has dealt a big blow to a tourism industry that used to account for 12 percent of foreign revenue, economists and businesspeople said.
Some businesspeople that, even before the ban, merchants had already reduced letters of credit for imports as demand fell. They said traders and even government agencies were hoarding foreign currency as worries rose that new measures to cushion the economy from sanctions could hit the Syrian pound.
“This move will only worsen the situation and add to the uncertainty,” said another businessman in the Halabouni district in the capital.
“[Investors and traders] ... are holding tight and not buying any goods ... but [also] not panicking so far,” he said.
Economists and bankers say Syria’s foreign reserves have been falling as the central bank sells hard currency to try to stop the Syrian pound falling on the black market.
The official rate is 47.4 Syrian pounds to the US dollar, but on the black market a US dollar costs 51 pounds or more.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion