Large demonstrations in support of the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus, the capital, on March 29, 2011. The president addressed parliament on March 30 and denounced the foreign plot against the country., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Turkey Levies 30% Tax on Syrian Goods as Al-Assad Freezes Trade
December 07, 2011, 10:27 PM EST
Business Week
By Emre Peker
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey will levy taxes of about 30 percent tax on Syrian goods after President Bashar al-Assad suspended a free-trade agreement and imposed taxes on Turkish exports, Customs & Trade Minister Hayati Yazici said.
Another measure barring Syrian vehicles that are 20 years and older from entering Turkey and alternative transit routes to enable Turkish exporters from bypassing its southern neighbor add to efforts targeting Syria’s economy, Yazici told reporters in Ankara today, according to state-run Anatolia news agency.
Relations with Turkey, Syria’s fifth-biggest trading partner and export market, have been deteriorating since August, when Assad failed to take steps he agreed to with Turkey to end his crackdown on dissent, which the United Nations said has cost more than 4,000 lives since mid-March. Since then, Turkey has halted joint energy exploration, joined the Arab League’s sanctions against its once-close ally, threatened to expand embargoes and started shipping routes to Egypt and Lebanon to circumvent Syria, which had been blocking Turkish trucks.
“They are sawing off the branch they’re sitting on,” Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan told reporters in televised remarks from Istanbul. “These aren’t moves that a country with such a need for cash and a seriously pressured economy should be making.”
Syria has responded to Turkish measures in kind, imposing a 30 percent tax on imports from Turkey last week, the state-run Syrian Arab news agency reported.
Turkish exports to Syria last year amounted to 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) and imports were 460 million euros, or 4.1 percent of all Syrian exports, according to trade data from the European Union, the Arab country’s biggest trading partner.
Dropping Trade
Trade between Turkey and Syria through November contracted 8 percent from a year earlier, Caglayan said on Dec. 4, according Anatolia.
Assad’s government also doubled transit fees to $800 for goods headed to Syria and to $1,400 for exports designated to Lebanon, the news agency reported, citing Mustafa Yilmaz, an executive board member at the country’s International Transporters’ Association in Istanbul. Yilmaz told Anatolia that Turkish trucks weren’t allowed entry for five days and that Syria also increased fuel prices for transporters from Turkey.
Syria started letting in Turkish trucks that had been denied entry as Turkey established new sea routes to Egypt and Lebanon and opened more road links for the transport of goods via Iraq, Caglayan said.
“It’s very easy for us to bypass Syria,” said the economy minister, who is responsible for foreign trade. He warned that Turkey would respond “in multitudes” to any threat to its interests.
Syria regrets the developments in its relations with Turkey, Jihad Makdissi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters today in remarks televised from Damascus.
--Editor: Jennifer M. Freedman
To contact the reporter on this story: Emre Peker in Ankara at epeker2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden in Dubai at barden@bloomberg.net.
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