[Economics] Dilapidated living conditions.. The fuel crisis and the collapse of the lira deepen the pain of the Syrians

[SnO]

Northern Syria - Despite the Central Bank of Syria's denial of the news circulating about its bankruptcy and its inability to pay wages to workers in state departments in the coming months, employees in regime-controlled areas are now afraid of an imminent collapse in the value of their meager salaries, and their lack of purchasing power in the near future.

 

 

The salary of Ahmad al-Halabi (a pseudonym) - an employee in the Education Directorate in the city of Aleppo - amounting to 100,000 Syrian pounds, now does not exceed more than 17 US dollars, after the successive losses in the Syrian pound. The exchange rate exceeded 6,000 Syrian pounds per dollar in Sunday's trading.

Al-Halabi said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the population in the areas controlled by the regime have become at the mercy of rumors - which spread like wildfire - about the approaching state bankruptcy and the cessation of paying salaries to employees, due to the already collapsed economic situation.

Al-Halabi indicated that his monthly salary is no longer enough for him for more than 3 to 4 days to secure food and drink, after the rapid rise in the prices of food and supplies, and the massive impact of the loss of fuel on market prices and the movement of transportation.

The government employee expressed his belief that the population in regime-controlled areas is experiencing the worst stage in terms of living and services since the start of the war in 2011, pointing out that the conditions during the battles and clashes were better than the relative calm that the country is experiencing today.

living crisis
In light of the historical collapse of the Syrian pound and the cessation of public transport and communication due to the loss of fuel, the city of Aleppo, which is under the control of the regime, is going through a situation that resembles a curfew, at a time when students and state employees are forced to move around on foot, in the midst of cold weather.

In the Al-Jamiliya market in the center of the city, the movement of buying and selling has become almost non-existent, and buying and selling has been limited to the main items of the table, such as bread, some vegetables and grains.

A trader (who refused to reveal his name) said that he had to raise the prices of vegetables and fruits by 30%, due to the double increase in transportation fares during the past two weeks, and wholesalers refused to borrow from them and asked to pay in cash.

And the merchant added - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the high prices caused the reluctance of customers and the decline in the purchase movement, indicating that keeping the prices as they are will expose him to loss.

For his part, the retired employee Abu Amjad (66 years old) confirmed that the problem is not in the abundance and security of materials, as they are spread in all the city’s markets, but rather lies in the value of wages and the purchasing power of the people.

Abu Amjad pointed out that the Syrian citizen needs a salary of one million Syrian pounds, in order to be able to meet the expenses of his family and its needs of food, clothing, study expenses, and transportation, while the state provides him with only 100,000 Syrian pounds and asks him to manage his affairs with it.

The ongoing fuel loss crisis has stopped a number of bakeries from working in Syria and paralyzed transportation and communications (Al-Jazeera)
extreme poverty
The Central Bank of Syria denied what was circulated through the Syrian media - which it attributed to the Associated Press - about its bankruptcy and its inability to pay salaries, stressing - in a statement - that the liquidity available to the bank is sufficient for years, not just months, in addition to the existence of sufficient stocks of forex.

The Syrian regime will not be unable to pay the salaries of the employees and the Syrian bank will declare bankruptcy, according to the Syrian economic advisor Osama Qadi, because the salaries are paid in Syrian pounds, and it only costs it the value of printing the currency, considering that the problem is not in handing the employee an amount of approximately 100 thousand Syrian pounds, but in the value Those prints of paper currency against the US dollar exchange rate.

Qazi said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the state's new general budget amounted to about 16.5 trillion Syrian pounds, to be the largest figure announced in the history of Syria, adding that it is the weakest budget in its actual value since 1950, which does not exceed more than 2.5 billion dollars.

Qazi believed that the decrease in the level of fuel will affect all aspects of life through the operation of furnaces, transportation, and the closure of government institutions, and thus the decline in national product and the decline in the standard of living towards extreme poverty.

Causes and solutions
In the face of these accumulated crises, the government of the Syrian regime is working on temporary solutions that will help it in facilitating the movement of transport and the work of government institutions and bakeries, after the promises of Prime Minister Hussein Arnous of an upcoming breakthrough in the fuel crisis, which is believed to be through Iranian oil tankers that will successively reach the Syrian coast.

Economic analyst Younes al-Karim attributed the recent rapid collapse of the Syrian pound to several reasons, most notably the failure of the regime to regain control of the oil-rich areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the cessation of fuel supplies to the latter, in addition to the refusal of the regime's allies to supply it without paying for the fuel.

Al-Karim believed that the regime's options seem to be rearranging the warlords' map and providing economic gains through the privatization of state sectors, in exchange for them paying the price of oil and delivering it to the market in the regime-controlled areas at an unsubsidized price, warning that the matter will increase prices.

 

https://www.aljazeera.net/ebusiness/2022/12/19/انهيار-تاريخي-لقيمة-الليرة-هل-أفلس