Mohamed Al-Jazaery-Aleppo
The shops in northern Syria suffered during the past days from the fluctuation of the exchange rate of the Syrian pound, which greatly affected the variation in the prices of all commodities - especially foodstuffs - on which daily demand is concentrated, and this caused great confusion among the people, due to the difference in food prices between Hour and hour and change by the owners of the shops parallel with the difference in the exchange rate of the lira.
Abu Muhammad - who is one of the business owners in the city of Azaz - says, “We incurred losses due to the variation in the exchange rate of the lira during the first two days of the fall of the Syrian lira, which forced us to change food prices in parallel with the price of the dollar .. wholesalers deal in dollars and we sell to the citizen in pounds Syrian, and whenever the exchange rate changes, we must change the price of materials to reduce our losses. "
Abu Jawad, who is one of the wholesalers, stated that he is obligated with the rest of the merchants to deal in dollars since most of the goods are imported from or through Turkey, and that it is difficult for them to buy in dollars and sell in the Syrian pound, as he will return to them with a loss of the first lira, no matter how small.
| The Syrian regime faces the charge of being behind the collapse of the lira exchange in opposition areas (Al-Jazeera) |
Economists warnings
Economists in the north of Syria have warned of the danger of dealing in the Syrian pound, especially the two thousand category, and they said that it is a printed currency without a balance, and that the Syrian regime seeks to put it in the opposition areas in exchange for withdrawing foreign coins to support its economy.
They added that the Syrian pound - which has lost more than ten times its value since the beginning of the Syrian revolution - has become a major impact on purchasing power in opposition regions with every drop, especially on workers and peasants who are the nucleus of the region's economy.
Activists in the northern countryside of Aleppo began, in conjunction with these warnings, campaigns calling for the cessation of dealing in the Syrian pound - specifically the two thousand category - through popular publications and seminars in which economists explain the importance of stopping dealing in the lira and its risks with the coming days.
Activist Imran Qusai says, "The campaigns began to take a serious nature in the region, and gold merchants and some gas stations began to impose the Turkish lira or the dollar to deal, and the commercial shops have come to accept dealing in the Turkish lira and do not reject it."
Subtracting the Turkish lira
Governmental organizations began in earnest to study the introduction of the Turkish lira to deal in northern Syria, to maintain purchasing power, to protect the region's economy from deterioration, and to prevent linking it to the economy of the Syrian regime, which it describes as shadow, in line with the demands of traders.
| Merchants in northern Syria complain of the persistent price differential of the local lira (Al-Jazeera). |
And these measures have already started in the northern countryside of Aleppo, by issuing decisions from the local city council of Azaz to prevent the circulation of the Syrian cash currency of the category of two thousand pounds, and the people were invited to get rid of this cash category within a month.
The local Azaz Council had issued a previous decision obligating the gold shop to adopt the price in Turkish lira, while the head of the Syrian interim government Abdel-Rahman Mustafa said through his Twitter account that "in order to preserve the purchasing power of citizens and protect their money and properties and facilitate daily transactions we seek to pump small banknotes From the category of 5, 10 and 20 Turkish liras in the markets of the liberated areas during the coming period. "
The challenges presented to government institutions seeking to replace the Syrian currency with Turkish remain in the areas outside the control of the regime by imposing control on exchange shops and ways to dispose of the Syrian currency that is currently in its areas.