From agriculture to crude oil, drilling into Syria's rocky economy
What was once a robust economy investing in health, education and infrastructure, the Syrian Arab Republic is now a country shattered by war, with 32 percent decline in GDP per capita between 2011 and 2014 and 34 percent of adolescents out of school in 2014, according to data from the United Nations and the World Bank.​
In 1984, Syria's GDP per capita was higher than the GDP of Turkey, at par with Poland and only slightly lower than the GDP of South Korea. Agriculture was a key pillar in Syria's economy at that time, accounting for 16.5 percent of GDP. However, services were the primary economic activity contributing to 57 percent of the country's economy, based on data from the World Bank.
In the mid-1980s Syria faced a serious economic distress after president Hafiz al-Assad decided to adopt a 'policy of strategic parity with Israel' (Zisser, 2007).​
Surprisingly perhaps, what revived Syria's economy was not the discovery of oil fields in late 1980s. In reality, oil exploitation did nothing but delay the economic reforms until 2001 when Hafiz's son, Bashar al-Assad, became president and started liberalising the economy generating what was called the 'Damascus spring'.​
By 2010, GDP per capita grew by 34 percentage points. In less than nine years, Syria witnessed massive improvements in its legal and regulatory frameworks, reductions in custom barriers, while the banking and insurance sectors opened to private investment. This was the second and highest peak for Syria's economy since 1984, with GDP per capita at $2,918.
However, the 'liberalisation of the economy has not been accompanied by significant support from the state to help the economy adapt to these changes', said Jihad Yazigi, edior-in-chief of The Syria Report, at the Syria Conference held in 2012 at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the UK.
From a reduction in subsidies to agriculture in the middle of a drought in 2008 to the lack of financial instruments to support exports and reap the benefits of free trade agreements with Turkey, the Syrian government failed to sustain the economic growth after 2010.
Moreover, since 2011, when a revolution against the Syrian government turned into an ongoing civil war, the country's economy was shattered through the ban on exports, especially crude oil, as well as 'a very severe and quick decline in confidence by both consumers and investors', as Jihad Yazigi argued at the 2012 conference on Syria.
In addition, more than 250,000 people died, as reported by the UN in August 2014. Recent statistics vary the death toll between 300,000 and 470,000, depending on the data source and bearing in mind that certain conflict areas are still inaccessible. For this reason and to avoid circulating conflicting statistics, the UN stopped keeping track of war victims 18 months ago.
A discussion about Syria's economic growth immediately after the ceasefire agreed upon earlier this month is still very difficult, if not impossible, without accurate economic data. As Jihad Yazigi argued, 'for Syria, we cannot talk anymore about the formal economy'.
For more than five years, Syria had to deal with a war economy which saw approximately 740,000 people without access to electricity and farmers having to price tomatoes in US dollars due to high inflation. Whereas the United Nations allegedly awarded Syrian companies $200 million worth of contracts in 2015, according to The Syrian Report, as long as airstrikes are still open in rebel-held areas, the post-war economy will take long time to recover.
Full data available here.