Syria .. Markets announce the death of the lira and the dollar inflames prices

Montaser Abu Nabot - Damascus

She wanders among the shops of the popular vegetable market in Rukn Al-Din neighborhood, and looks with admiration and condemnation at the price plates hanging on each type of vegetables and fruits, moves her lips and says in a low voice: These prices did not exist two days ago, but are twice what they were exactly.

Asmaa Al-Tahhan (not his real name) completes her tour in the market in order to obtain her family's lunch requirements. She was last shopping for her two days ago, during which she got enough of her house that period, but you do not know what happened and made the prices double this way.

She does not care about the dollar and its high price, it does not concern her because she is from a middle-class situation, and her family's conversation with the local currency is always (the lira). She thought, according to her saying, that the dollar talk is restricted to the wealthy class, and she does not know that the dollar issue is related to the strength of her family.

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Approaching a seller who offers tomatoes over the other vegetables in his shop, they are his best merchandise, but after I grabbed one of them, she brought it back and turned her hands, because the written price reached more than double 550 pounds, which equals half a US dollar.

This price is very high in a country like Syria, how could it not? It was only two days ago at 250 pounds per kilogram, the woman says that during her conversation with Al Jazeera Net. She adds that she intended to cook food that is considered inexpensive because it depends on two types of tomatoes and very little meat, but this is no longer the case under these prices.

Preparing lunch for that day would have cost the names of about four thousand pounds, approximately 8% of her husband’s monthly salary, which is less than fifty dollars. The idea was canceled and re-incorporated and decided to cook any available foodstuffs that are prepared since the beginning of the year and stored for use during the year in what is known inside Syria as the "mortar" meaning any material that does not spoil during the storage period, and is consumed during the year.

Available solutions
When the Syrians were waiting within the regime’s regions for logical solutions to alleviate the economic crisis in their homes, the Prime Minister issued a decision that limits the quantities that each family can obtain from government-subsidized food, which exacerbated the crisis.

It has become difficult to obtain sugar, oil, tea and other basic materials, especially if the subsidized amount that the citizen will be allowed to run out to be exhausted. The monthly income of any citizen working in the private or public sectors does not exceed fifty dollars, and this amount is never enough.

How do families manage themselves? Citizenship itself answers by saying that the only solution approved by many families is the presence of a relative outside the country, which helps them by sending an amount in foreign currency per month.

Reality of the economy
The Governor of the Central Bank appeared on television, stressing that the bank's job is not to stabilize the price of the dollar but rather to support the import of basic materials intended for production, which insure the basic needs of the citizen.

This is what the executive director of the Syrian Economic Forum Tammam Al-Baroudi denied, as he stated to Al-Jazeera Net that the central is completely bankrupt and has no options, indicating that the economy is managed through funds that the system recently has, including oil, medicine, basic commodities, tobacco and other materials needed by any country. .

Al-Baroudi affirms that every businessman loyal to the regime takes over one of these funds in coordination and cooperation with the Central, so that the import takes place through Lebanon.