Corona Increases the Syrian Budget Deficit

  • Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic
  • 12 May 2020
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The precautionary measures taken by the Syrian government to confront the Coronavirus increased production and trade paralysis, which affected the limited resources collected by the state's public treasury, especially the expected revenue from fees and taxes at 83 billion pounds during the first quarter of this year.

The deficit reached during the first quarter of this year to about 100 billion pounds (71 million dollars) to be added to the expected deficit since the approval of the budget of 1400 billion pounds (billion dollars).

The State Planning Commission in the Syrian government has announced, since the approval of the budget in 2020, a deficit of 35 percent, indicating that the amount allocated to support oil derivatives declined by more than 96 percent from about 343 billion pounds in 2019 to 11 billion pounds in 2020.

It should be noted that the general budget of the Syrian state for 2020 amounted to 4000 billion Syrian pounds (about 8 billion dollars at the time), an increase of 118 billion pounds from the year 2019, distributed between the current and investment credit.

The figures show, according to Syrian economic analysts, that despite the aid the Syrian state received in order to confront Corona, from Arab countries and international organizations, the public treasury is empty and there is no foreign exchange at the central bank, as evidence of not increasing wages despite the high prices and massive inflation, after the price of the dollar is exceeded 1400 liras.

Source (The New Arab Newspaper, Edited)