Damascus- The markets of the Syrian capital, Damascus, are witnessing an acceptable commercial movement by the first days of the holy month, while the prices of some food commodities increased compared to the past month.
The living challenges that the Syrians face shall receive their breakfast tables and suhoor despite their improvement in purchasing power compared to Ramadan last year, after the exchange rate of the lira against foreign currencies recently increased.
But the salaries of the Syrians are still not sufficient to meet their needs during Ramadan, while many face difficulty in obtaining cash, due to the central bank followed the policy of imprisoning the liquidity that delays and fragments of the payment of salaries, while thousands of government employees who have recently been released without work.
Last month, the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection launched a marketing event in cooperation with a number of local companies under the title “Ramadan Al Khair Markets” in a number of governorates, which provide discounts and offers on foodstuffs to alleviate economic burdens on citizens.
The supervisor of the Internal Trade Directorate in Damascus and its countryside, Ghayath Bakour, promised a few days ago to impose strict control on the markets in the holy month of Ramadan with the aim of controlling prices and preventing manipulation of goods, and ensuring the provision of basic commodities for citizens at reasonable prices.
Between height and stability
Al -Jazeera Net monitored, in a tour of the Damascus markets, the high prices of some commodities and other stability, but most of the commodities remain declining with twice as a comparison of Ramadan last year.
The prices of vegetables of all kinds increased significantly on the first days of the holy month as a result of the increased demand for them:
- The price of a kilo of tomatoes (tomatoes), for example, increased from 4 thousand pounds (0.4 dollars) to 7 thousand (0.7 dollars).
- The kilo of zucchini increased from 8,000 pounds ($ 0.8) to 11 thousand (1.1 dollars).
The pills and other foodstuffs have maintained their prices, where it remained:
- The price of a kilo of Egyptian rice at the limits of 9 thousand pounds ($ 0.9).
- The price of a kilo of flour at 4 thousand pounds.
- The price of a kilo of sugar at 6 thousand pounds ($ 0.6).
- The price of a kilo of lentils decreased to 10 thousand pounds (dollars).
- The price of bulgur at 7 thousand pounds ($ 0.7).
While meat prices decreased significantly compared to Ramadan, where:
- The price of a kilo of wheel is 100 thousand pounds (10 dollars).
- The price of a kilo of sheep meat is 120 thousand pounds (12 dollars), after last year it exceeded the 200,000 barrier (20 dollars).
Tammam Al -Zayla’a, 37, an employee in the public sector, says that she touched an improvement in commodity prices in the Damascus markets, due to the reasons for this to the competition created by imported foreign goods that were prohibited in the era of the previous regime.
“Despite the humility of the value of the salary that I receive, I have become able to buy the weakness of the goods that I was buying in the past. National commodities declined their price and imported goods are very cheap.”
As for Hadi Al -Ahmad, an employee at the University of Damascus, he indicates that his salary is barely sufficient to cover the breakfast table for a week, adding that he and his family are unable to exchange determination with his relatives because of the difficulty of covering food and hospitality expenses.
Al -Ahmad continues in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net: “We were hoping that the salaries that the government talked about would have spoken to at the beginning of this blessed month, so that we can facilitate our affairs and see the difference in the new Syria.”
Public sector employees in Syria, whose average salary is about 325,000 pounds (32 dollars), is awaiting the implementation of the commitment of the caretaker government, last January, to increase salaries by 400%.
An acceptable commercial movement
Haji Abu Muhammad, 55, who is accompanied by Bazuriya Abu Al -Abd in Damascus, said that “the movement of the market this year is somewhat acceptable to the past Ramadan. The prices have decreased significantly, but if we want to talk about the purchasing power, people in general do not have financial liquidity.”
On the impact of imported goods, Abu Muhammad added that it did not affect his work significantly, noting that these goods are not enough quality “but rather approaching mediocrity. In the beginning, people tried to buy them, but they soon returned to national goods after the experience.”
The sale of imported food commodities has spread widely in the streets of the Syrian capital, Damascus, since last December, and is a challenge to the local industry due to the low prices.
For his part, Tariq Al -Hafiz (31 years old), the owner of an Arab sweets store in the Al -Barameka market in Damascus, says that the market movement is “light”, considering it a regular issue in the early days of the holy month.
He adds in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net: “The prices of raw materials decreased, so we reduced our prices, last year we had a problem at the level of securing nuts, as the price of cashews, for example, astronomical numbers after its import was banned, while the price of a kilo of pistachios reached 400 thousand pounds, but today it decreased to 300 thousand for the first elites, and this decrease in prices revives the market.”
The owner of the sweets store indicates the effect of fluctuating the lira exchange rate against foreign currencies on sellers and owners of commercial events who need raw materials sold from wholesalers in the commodity dollar; What the wholesaler raises by 10% to ensure that there is no loss, and therefore the sellers are forced to raise the prices of their goods, considering that fixing the exchange rate is an urgent need to protect the consumer.
Ramadan markets
To reduce the economic burdens on the Syrians during the holy month, the Ministry of Internal Trade, in cooperation with the Chambers of Industry and Trade in a number of governorates, launched the activities of the “Ramadan Good Markets” festival.
Al -Jazeera Net visited one of these activities in the Umayyad Complex in the Al -Baramaka area, and the complex was divided into commercial pillars, each of which includes a local food company that displays its goods with simple profit margins and many offers.
The supervisor of the Damascus Chamber of Industry and its countryside, Mohamed Omar, says that “Ramadan Al -Khair Markets” gathered most of the Syrian industrialists in the country to display their products in the form of “the episode of the wholesaler and the merchant merchant”; The goods are presented directly from the product to the consumer at reduced prices.
Omar adds in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net: “The Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection thanked the building for us, and in turn we organized the event and invited industrialists to display their products.”
The consumer can save in the prices of commodities that he buys from the pillars of Ramadan markets, good between 10% to 20% compared to the prices of those goods in the markets.
