Alwaght | News & Analysis Website

Alwaght - Throughout history, Syria has been the most important corridor for the global and the regional trade. Levant's, the strategic land that attaches the three continents- Asia, Africa and Europe- is seriously affected by a devastating war that has wreaked havoc on Syria from five years ago. Trade exchange in the region was extremely threatened by this endless war causing a lot of economic damages to the Syria's neighboring countries including Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon.
Due to the late field and military developments, Syria has lost all its border crossings with Jordan, Iraq and Turkey as ISIS terrorist group took control over Tadmurr province and Tanaph border crossing between Iraq and Syria as well as al-Nusra Front occupation of Naseeb border with Jordan that resulted in halt in the ground trade exchange between countries in the region.
Last year, the international bank has issued a business note including the direct and the indirect economic effects of the Syrian war on the countries in the region. According to this note , " the deterioration of Syrian labor forces and its proficiency is due to: the rising numbers of deaths , flow of Syrian refugees abroad , destruction of the country's infrastructure , embargo imposed on Syria , the high cost of business and eventually the reduction of the productivity . "
The international bank estimated the loss of the war-affected countries -Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt- tops 35 million dollar that is equal to the total Syrian domestic production in 2007.
According to economists , The economic damage of the Syrian war is different from one country to another ; where the per capital income in both Syria and Iraq dropped sequentially up to 23 percent and 28 percent , and up to 11 percent in Lebanon, in comparison to the expected income in normal situation .
Regarding Lebanon, in addition to reduction in the country's exports through Syria, Persian Gulf Arab countries prohibited their nationals from traveling to Lebanon that inflicted crippling losses on the country's tourism sector extreme reducing it up to 50 percent. The economic growth also dropped to zero after the country has experienced 8 percent growth between 2007 and 2010.
During Syrian crisis, Lebanon hosts more than one million refugees: that is about 20 percent of the country's total population. However, refugees as consumers have revived Lebanese markets, but at the same time, they caused many economic problems regarding job opportunities as well as social and security issues that they have imposed on the host-country.
  Jordan, considering its poor and limited resources, has suffered a lot from heavy economic pressures caused by the Syrian and Iraqi refugees who constitute about 25 percent of its population. What makes Jordan's economic crisis more vulnerable is the complete stop of the trade exchange between Syria and Jordan. Forty percent of Jordanian exports to Turkey and Europe were through Syria that the country has been deprived of since beginning of war in Syria.
Another country that was affected by this destructive war is Iraq, which had suffered a lot from mounting pressures and challenges. These hazardous pressures along with the fall of the oil price to less than 60 dollars per barrel and high security cost of confrontation with ISIS terrorist group had inflicted the warn-torn country's fragile economy.
Syrian war had economic consequences on its neighboring Turkey, as well. Turkey's economy has flourished through interaction with Syria and Iraq during the last decade, but Syrian war delivered a heavy blow to the Ankara's economic achievement. Although this region's trade is very small comparing to the total trade of Turkey, it had played crucial role in the development of the economy of the country's poor areas. For example, we have seen that in November, 2012, Hatay, a province in southern Turkey, export had reduced to less than 50 percent in comparison to its export amount in 2010. The same fate has also incurred for many other Turkish southern provinces.