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- Economy
-
- Overview: Syria's rigidly structured Bathist economy is turning
- out roughly the same amount of goods in 1989 as in 1983, when the
- population was 20% smaller. Economic difficulties are attributable,
- in part, to severe drought in several recent years, costly but
- unsuccessful attempts to match Israel's military strength, a falloff
- in Arab aid, and insufficient foreign exchange earnings to buy
- needed inputs for industry and agriculture. Socialist policy,
- embodied in a thicket of bureaucratic regulations, in many instances
- has driven away or pushed underground the mercantile and
- entrepreneurial spirit for which Syrian businessmen have long been
- famous. Two bright spots: a sizable number of villagers have
- benefited from land redistribution, electrification, and other rural
- development programs; and a recent find of light crude oil has
- enabled Syria to cut back its substantial imports of light crude. A
- long-term concern is the additional drain of upstream Euphrates water
- by Turkey when its vast dam and irrigation projects are completed
- toward the end of the 1990s.
-
- GDP: $18.5 billion, per capita $1,540; real growth rate -2%
- (1989 est.).
-
- Inflation rate (consumer prices): 70% (1989 est.).
-
- Unemployment rate: NA%.
-
- Budget: revenues $NA; expenditures $3.2 billion, including
- capital expenditures of $1.92 billion (1989).
-
- Exports: $1.3 billion (f.o.b., 1988 est.); commodities--petroleum,
- textiles, fruits and vegetables, phosphates; partners--Italy,
- Romania, USSR, US, Iran, France.
-
- Imports: $1.9 billion (f.o.b., 1988 est.); commodities--petroleum,
- machinery, base metals, foodstuffs and beverages; partners--Iran,
- FRG, USSR, France, GDR, Libya, US.
-
- External debt: $5.3 billion in hard currency (1989 est.).
-
- Industrial production: growth rate NA%.
-
- Electricity: 2,867,000 kW capacity; 6,000 million kWh produced,
- 500 kWh per capita (1989).
-
- Industries: textiles, food processing, beverages, tobacco,
- phosphate rock mining, petroleum.
-
- Agriculture: accounts for 27% of GDP and one-third of labor
- force; all major crops (wheat, barley, cotton, lentils,
- chickpeas) grown on rainfed land causing wide swings in
- yields; animal products--beef, lamb, eggs, poultry, milk;
- not self-sufficient in grain or livestock products.
-
- Aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-81), $538 million;
- Western (non-US) ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-87),
- $1.0 billion; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89), $12.3 billion;
- Communist countries (1970-88), $3.3 billion.
-
- Currency: Syrian pound (plural--pounds); 1 Syrian pound
- (LS) = 100 piasters.
-
- Exchange rates: Syrian pounds (LS) per US$1--11.2250 (fixed
- rate since 1987), 3.9250 (fixed rate 1976-87).
-
- Fiscal year: calendar year.
-