FAO Project (GCP/SYR/006/ITA)
Country Background - Syria: Agriculture and the Economy
Syria has a per capita Gross National Income of $1190 (2004, World Bank data) and a total population of 17.8 million evenly distributed between rural and urban areas. The agricultural sector provides between 1/4 and 1/3 of both employment and Gross Domestic Product. Agriculture is the second source of export earnings, after the oil sector, and its backward and forward linkages constitute the most relevant source of stimuli for industrial and commercial activities. The per capita food availability of the population is comparable, in terms of Calories (about 3,330 Calories/capita/day), to that enjoyed in industrialized countries.
Over the past four decades, agricultural growth has been able to respond to the needs resulting from a high rate of population growth (3.3% in 1970s, 3.6% in the 1980s, 2.7% in the 1990s, and 2.4% in 2004) increasing the production of most food staples to the level of food self-sufficiency, through price support and technological innovation. Syria has also achieved significant progress in alleviation of poverty and improvement of living conditions in rural areas, through infrastructure and social services. This has probably contributed to slowing down the process of urbanization which has occurred in other countries, where it is accompanied by social and economic problems.
For many decades, agriculture has been regulated through five-year agriculture plans and annual production plans approved by the Supreme Agricultural Council. The plan determined areas for cultivation, crops, rotations and the cultural practices. Marketing of agricultural produce was through state corporations and companies to which farmers were obliged to sell at fixed prices. Starting from the 6 th five-year plan (1986-1990), the plans have shifted towards an indicative status.
A gradual reform process started in the second half of the 1980s to stimulate an increased participation of the private sector that was given a larger role in marketing all products with few exceptions for the so called “strategic crops” (cotton, sugar beet, wheat, tobacco, barley, lentils and chick peas), which are still under full or partial control of the public sector.
In the late 1990s and at the beginning of the new century, reforms intensified to give a greater role to the private sector, attract foreign investments, modernise the public administration and promote competitiveness on the international market. Reforms of the exchange rate regime were implemented, with gradual devaluations and unification of the various rates to move closer to the free market rate, as well as reforms in currency use regulation, simplification of the tariff system, legislation to promote small-scale investments and employment, reform of the banking system to promote efficiency of state banks and the development of private banking, and creation of a regulatory body, known as ‘The Syrian Securities and Exchange Commission', to promote the start up a first Syrian stock market.
The turning point in policy approach can be considered the formalization, in 2005, of the Government orientation towards the development of a “social market economy”. The State Planning Commission is currently working on the 10 th five-year plan (2006-2010) with the aim of coordinating Syrian reforms and ensuring synergies among economic, financial, investment, and agricultural policies, as well as social policy, having as a final target social and economic development.
In agriculture, the objectives of the sector strategy for the period 2001-2010 include the achievement of a high level of self-sufficiency in main food staples, optimal utilization of natural resources, increasing exports and attracting investments, improving rural living standards and containing rural-urban migration, generating employment in rural areas and improving food consumption in both rural and urban areas.
Furthermore, during the 1990s Syria increased its economic and trade relations through bilateral trade agreements (with Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen) as well as through the adhesion to the Great Arab Free Trade Agreement, aiming at the establishment of an Arab Free Trade Area by 2005. In 2001, Syria applied for WTO membership and in December 2003 it concluded the technical negotiations of the Association Agreement with the European Union.
FAO Project GCP/SYR/006/ITA © FAO 2006