Syria at the Crossroads: A Review and Comparative Analysis of Syria's Current Trade Policy Reality

Abstract

Slowly but steadily Syria is emerging from several decades of economic seclusion. Syria currently finds itself in a period of cautious albeit unprecedented engagement with the global economy. These efforts are personified in terms of greater engagement within the region, manifested by its participation in the Greater Arab Free Trade Area or GAFTA as well as bilateral agreements with Turkey and Iran, tentative steps to engage with the European Union to a previously unimagined degree, as well as hitherto uneven progress in its long-standing bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).The review conducted in this paper covers five agreements and one draft agreement. The five agreements are the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), the Cooperation Agreement with the European Community (1979), the Association Agreement with the European Union (2004), the Association Agreement with Turkey (2004), and the Preferential Trade Agreement with Iran (2006). The draft agreement reviewed is the one with Belorussia, still pending conclusion, signature and ratification by either party.The review concludes with a discussion of the strategic implications of trade liberalization are for Syria, looking first at increased engagement bilaterally and regionally followed by a discussion on WTO accession.The next few years, as Syria moves forward, involve challenges, risks and a certain degree of uncertainty, but they also bring with them the prospect of enormous rewards and benefits for the Syrian economy and its people. To be sure, the alternative of continued marginalization at the periphery of the global trading system and the limited influence this brings with it, is no real alternative at all.