Political Turmoil Complicates Efforts to Revive Syrian Exports

Officials in Syria’s new de facto gov­ern­ment have instructed min­istries and shops to reopen less than a week since the dra­matic ouster of for­mer Syrian President Basah al-Assad in an effort to kick­start the country’s stalled econ­omy.

Assad fled to Russia after a coali­tion of rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham top­pled his gov­ern­ment and cap­tured the cap­i­tal, Damascus, poten­tially bring­ing the 13-year civil war in which more than half a mil­lion peo­ple were killed and 13 mil­lion dis­placed to an unex­pected end.

Acting Finance Minister Riad Abd El Raoud told the Financial Times that the new gov­ern­ment would under­take ​“a re-exam­i­na­tion of all cur­rent mon­e­tary and eco­nomic poli­cies.”

Among these poli­cies is the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade’s October deci­sion to green­light the export of 10,000 met­ric tons of olive oil after pro­hibit­ing exports in September 2023. Export licenses were restricted to gov­ern­ment-approved com­pa­nies.

It remains to be seen how the next gov­ern­ment will change this arrange­ment or if it will lift the export ban com­pletely. However, its lead­ers have pledged to enact free-mar­ket reforms and crack down on ubiq­ui­tous cor­rup­tion across the state appa­ra­tus.

The deci­sion came after the agri­cul­ture min­istry said it antic­i­pated a sur­plus of olive oil, with pro­duc­tion expected to reach 55,000 tons in areas con­trolled by the Assad regime; olive oil con­sump­tion in Syria is about 48,000 tons annu­ally.

About 40 per­cent of the country’s olive groves are in north­west­ern Syria, parts occu­pied by Turkey or gov­erned by non-state actors for nearly a decade.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Syrian olive farm­ers expect to har­vest 11 per­cent more olives than in 2023/24. The min­istry also esti­mated that table olive pro­duc­tion will reach 86,000 tons.

However, some farm­ers in the coun­try’s north told local media that they were expect­ing a lower har­vest than ini­tially thought due to the lack of autumn rain and increased pest infes­ta­tions.

There have also been con­cerns about qual­ity. One agron­o­mist told local media that the eco­nomic cri­sis fomented by the civil war had pre­vented mills from oper­at­ing daily and resulted in farm­ers leav­ing olives mul­ti­ple days in burlap sacks wait­ing to be milled.

The agron­o­mist added that a water short­age after years of drought means many of the olives were not washed, leav­ing pes­ti­cide residue from the most recent appli­ca­tions.

The country’s eco­nomic cri­sis has also affected local con­sump­tion, with per capita olive oil con­sump­tion drop­ping to about three kilo­grams annu­ally, down from six kilo­grams.

Officials in the pre­vi­ous regime had hoped that olive oil exports could bol­ster the econ­omy. Olive groves cover about 423,000 hectares and com­prise 61 mil­lion fruit-bear­ing trees. The indus­try was viewed as strate­gic, ben­e­fit­ting 20 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion.

The new gov­ern­ment is now work­ing to lift Western sanc­tions, allow­ing exports to European coun­tries, includ­ing Italy, where a dis­ap­point­ing har­vest means bot­tlers will be look­ing abroad to source prod­ucts.

Daniel Dawson con­tributed to this report.

• North Press Agency
• Al-Araby
• Enabbaladi