Søren Schmidt

The Missed Opportunity for Economic Reform in Syria

Bashar al-Asad, the incumbent President of Syria, declared in his inauguration speech in 2000 that economic development was his absolute priority. In February 2001 he reiterated in an interview with the London-based daily Al Sharq Al Awsat that his ‘general vision’ for Syria could be summed up in ‘seeing Syria more prosperous’. Even in Syria, gone are the days when nationalist and anti-Zionist rhetoric provided sufficient legitimacy to govern. Bashar al-Asad seems to have understood that income and jobs are increasingly important to the Syrian people who hold the regime accountable for the fact that all neighbouring countries (except probably Iraq) are faring much better than Syria. While Syria’s Gross National Income per capita was US

State and Market in Syria: The Politics of Economic Liberalization

1,190 in 2004, Jordan’s was US

The State and the Political Economy of Reform in Syria

2,140, Turkey’s US

Afghanistan: Organizing Danish Civil-Military Relations

3,750 and Lebanon’s US

Scenarier. Assads 'sejr' åbner for nye nederlag.

4,980. By and large, Bashar al-Asad has not succeeded in improving the Syrian economy since 2000. Economic growth has not exceeded population growth, and as a consequence only a fraction of the almost 300,000 people who enter the labour market every year have found employment. Unemployment is rising and the International Labor Organization estimated youth unemployment (ages 15–24) to be 73 per cent in 2002. It is also disturbing that the illiteracy rate has risen lately by more than 10 per cent and now stands at 19 per cent, and that the number of people considered below the poverty threshold and not able to satisfy their basic needs is now estimated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to comprise 11.4 per cent of the population. Expectations of reform were high when Bashar al-Asad took power in 2000. The funeral of his father, Hafez al-Asad, was attended by prominent leaders such as Madeleine Albright, Jacques Chirac and Romano Prodi, who by their presence gave Bashar al-Asad their nod of approval, together with the promise of support to bring change and reform to Syria. Likewise, during the last five years, European Union

Wither Saudi Arabia

According to a recent World Bank Publication, the current labor force in the Middle East totals some 104 million workers. This figure is expected to reach 146 million by 2010 and 185 million by 2020. Given this expansion, the economies of the region will need to create some 80 million new jobs in the next two decades. With unemployment now at about 15 percent, the more ambitious goal of absorbing unemployed workers in addition to the new entrants implies the need to create close to 100 million jobs by 2020, a doubling of the current level of employment (World Bank, 2004).