Newly introduced economic reforms in Syria
Syria, Economics, 12/12/1997

Syria has embarked on a new policy to maintain economic reforms, focusing on four principles: a larger role for the private sector, a new focus on exports,
reduced restrictions on imports, and restoring balance to macro-economic developments.

The role of the private sector was expanded throughout, but particularly in industry and foreign trade. Law no. 10 for the encouragement of investment, introduced in May 1991, offered investors tax, duty and other incentives, and opened the door for Syrians abroad, other Arabs and foreigners, to invest in Syria.

There is now an official recognition of the equally important role of the public, private and mixed sectors in the economy. The term "economic plurality" was coined to reflect the new approach, and the new term has now all but replaced the concept of the "leading role of the public sector" in official government discourse.

While the new policy calls for the expansion of the private sector, privatization in the sense of transforming fixed public sector assets in productive activity to the private sector has not been a Government policy. The Syrian government has opted to reform the public sector but not to privatize it.

The introduction of law No. 20 of 1994 which gave public enterprise managers more administrative autonomy was considered a step in the right direction.

The said reforms contributed to the economic recovery that has been witnessed since the early nineties, but the most important factor in this growth has been the production and export of high-quality crude oil which was discovered in 1984 and started to come on stream in 1986.

Production of oil, until then mostly heavy crude oil, doubled over the past eight year period, and transferred Syria from a net importer to a net exporter of oil. Oil exports yielding about US $1.2 billion a year made up for the fall in official capital inflow which was dominant in the late seventies and early eighties.

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