Damascus, the ancient city of merchants, witnessed a radical economic transformation following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8. Everywhere you turn, you will find a market and commercial activity, in a scene that is not unusual for that city that has been dominated by the nature of trade since Roman times to the present day.
However, this trade went through many phases, and the worst phase of all was what happened under the regime of Assad, father and son, and the worst was what trade went through in Damascus 14 years ago until the moment the regime fell.
The regime worked to form family lobbies that share everything with merchants in their trade, interfere in the movement of trade and the market, and shape the trade cycle in a way that achieves its interests. So in recent years, the commercial market has witnessed tremendous weakness.
Because “capital is cowardly,” many capitals have left the country because the economic environment is repulsive to money and its owners, so investment decisions are not made in a place where signs of anxiety or turmoil appear.
Moreover, the Assad family’s rule witnessed a state of monopoly on dealing in the dollar. At that time, the presence of American currency in the pockets of merchants was considered a crime worthy of concealment.
One month before the fall of the regime, many merchants were disappeared on charges of dealing in dollars, and goods and commodities went missing from the markets.
Fuel, such as red mercury, was extremely rare and difficult to obtain, while the Syrians did not have any element of heating or movement except the minimum, which was barely sufficient for them: diesel, gasoline and gas, in addition to high prices and a monopoly on the main food commodities.
The dollar and other trading surprises
After the overthrow of Bashar’s regime, the first surprises were purely commercial. One day after the fall of the regime, dealing in the dollar became public and on the street.
Children began walking in the streets of Damascus carrying bundles of Syrian pounds, calling out at the top of their lungs: “Teller…Teller,” in a scene that represents a state of economic emancipation from a previous economic system to a new economic system.
This is the dollar that people have always dealt with in complete secrecy, as if they were exchanging some prohibited drugs. These are the drugs that the regime is known for manufacturing and exporting to the world. This was confirmed by several reports, after large quantities of Captagon tablets were found stacked in warehouses and military bases.
The dollar was not the first commodity or the first material that was liberated after the people were liberated from the regime’s restrictions. Rather, the rest of the commodities were also liberated. You walked in the street and found diesel and gasoline containers lined up on both sides of the street and being sold by people. Gas is being sold on the streets in a scene that people have not been familiar with for 14 years. They look at it and do not believe it.
Syria was perhaps the exception in the exchange rate of the Syrian pound against the dollar after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In all countries where regimes fall, the currency collapses, but the situation was different there.
Many months before the start of the operation to deter aggression, the price of the dollar was equal to 18 thousand liras. While his condition worsened during the operation to deter the aggression, and the Syrian pound collapsed until it reached 28 thousand pounds per dollar. Immediately after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the price of the dollar today became 13,000 liras, a noticeable and notable improvement for the Syrian currency.
This improvement was accompanied by a noticeable decrease in the prices of commodities that everyone felt. Bananas, the commodity that Syrians joke today that it was “dear, so it was humiliated,” had reached the price of a kilo of them one day before the fall of the regime to 50 thousand liras, but today you see them spread on carts in The roads now cost only 10,000 per kilometer.
In addition, the prices of basic commodities such as “sugar, rice, and tea” decreased significantly and at clear rates, and all of this happened in only the first week of the fall of Bashar al-Assad, which the Syrians considered an urgent economic achievement.
As for the electronics market, it was announced that the so-called “phone customs” would be cancelled, which is a tax imposed by the previous regime on imported phones that made the price of the phone double or triple its price.
The new procedure led to a decrease in phone prices, encouraged young people to buy them significantly, and provided the opportunity for everyone to get the phone they want.
In terms of car markets, the high prices of vehicles in regime-held areas were known to the point that some old, dilapidated cars were worth $20,000. With the fall of the regime, this market flourished in a different way, and many more modern cars entered from northern Syria, from the liberated areas, while the price of a modern car reached between 3 thousand and 5 thousand dollars, in addition to great freedom of movement for 3 months before demarcation.
Raising salaries and economic promises
All this improvement occurred in one week, with economic promises that citizens believe today that salaries will be raised at the beginning of next month, that is, in a few days, by 400%.
The new government seeks to enact new economic policies that work to liberalize goods, raise subsidies, reduce taxes, and lower customs duties in parallel with raising salaries.
All of this goes according to a new economic perspective that aims to make the market a competitive market, to revive this economy again.
Despite this, there remains a fear that worries factory owners in Syria, fearing the influx of foreign goods if taxes are abolished at a large rate, which will have a significant impact on the protection of the national product, which is unable to compete, especially in light of a country emerging from a brutal war that has eaten away the green. And dry.
To this day, the new government is still discussing this issue in its meetings with industrialists and chambers of commerce.
In the face of all this, there remains a golden opportunity in the hands of the new leadership to highlight the economic achievements that it has worked on and is still working on, while it took over a dilapidated and collapsing country.
Anything it can put into this country, whether money or small reforms, will emerge as an economic achievement, which will enhance its legitimacy, its popular incubator, and the masses’ rally around it.
It is worth noting that the new leadership, when it came, put in its plan that the development of Damascus would be economically similar to what it did in Idlib.
People are anticipating the new future of Syria, and hoping for the best under the new leadership. They see that nothing is coming worse than the rock bottom they experienced, and that any action, whatever it is, will be in their favor.
