16 May 2012
| Iranian-Syrian free trade agreement |
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According to the agreement, trade will be liberalised between Syria and Iran within the next five years. The two countries also agreed to form four committees to discuss means of enhancing economic, trade and investment cooperation. Syria has decided to reduce customs fees on Syrian goods exported to Iran by 60 percent in a bid to boost bilateral trade. "The road to Iran has always been paved for the two countries," Minister of Economy and Trade Mohammad Nidal al-Cha'ar said at the Syrian-Iranian committee meeting on December 14, SANA reported. He added that both countries would develop their economic ties via Iraq, which had already announced that it would not implement the Arab League's sanctions. "This is the first agreement of its kind signed by Iran with other countries in order to provide the necessary conditions for developing exports and economic cooperation in both countries," Commercial Attaché of the Iranian embassy in Damascus Abdul Redha Qassemian told Syria Today. "The deal would pave the way for the two sides to increase their annual trade volume to USD 5bn," he added. In spite of their strong political ties, Syria and Iran have traditionally had very limited economic links. Syria's exports to Iran, including olive oil, plastics, textile yarn, and iron and copper, amounted to only USD 29m in 2010. Iran's main export to Syria is engineering services, Qassemian said, amounting to USD 389m during the same year. However, in the last few years, links between the two countries have been strengthened due to several contracts awarded by the Syrian government to Iranian engineering firms for the construction of power plants, cement production lines, water networks silos and cars. The establishment of the trade agreement between the two countries was discussed for years before being approved through a decree from the Syrian president on August 3. However, it took effect only last month, after the Iranian Parliament approved a bill for that purpose. Syrian business operators face growing difficulties in trading internationally because of the restrictions on dollar transactions imposed by the American Administration and the difficulty of sourcing foreign currencies through the Central Bank. "The agreement is very important for Syria, as it opens a new market for its products," a professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Damascus who requested anonymity told Syria Today. However, he added that it is important to avoid the mistakes of previous free trade agreements which flooded the country with foreign goods and damaged national industries. "We are still awaiting more details on how this agreement would be implemented. Equivalence and equity between exports and imports are the only standards by which to evaluate the success of the agreement," he insisted. For his part, the Iranian commercial attaché stressed that the new economic alliance would not be shaken by security issues, such as the kidnapping of a group of eight Iranian engineers on December 20. The engineers were on their way to work on the Jandar power plant in the central province of Homs.
While calling on the Syrian government to do its best to determine the fate of these engineers and to rescue them, Qassemian affirmed that "such an incident would never affect the relations of the two countries, nor hinder the implementation of the agreement." |
16 May 2012
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