Syria flooded with Pepsi and Pringles as rulers open economy

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Syria has been flooded with imports since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, the end of dollar restrictions and exorbitant tariffs has led to a boom in goods that disappeared from shelves during the civil war.

in a few weeks Assad was ousted In an attack led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, imported Western and regional goods poured into shops.

Around the capital Damascus, shops are now stocked with Turkish bottled water, Saudi-produced bouillon cubes, Lebanese milk powder and Western chocolate brands such as Twix and Snickers. In one supermarket in the city centre, an entire wall was dedicated to Pringles.

“Everything you import is new,” said a supermarket worker, adding that people were most excited about cheese cubes and drinks like Pepsi. “Everything we used to sell was produced in Syria.”

Assad, in 2013, decriminalized foreign exchange in an attempt to strengthen the Syrian pound during the atrocities. 13 years of conflictWhile the government has also increased custom duty to raise revenue. For example, iPhones were subject to around $900 in tariffs as of last year.

This forced Syrians to rely on locally produced goods, heavily smuggling items from Lebanon that were not available domestically, such as soy sauce. International sanctions exacerbated isolation, although food and medicine were exempted.

Foreign goods were hidden behind counters and sold secretly to those who knew how to ask. Fears of raids, arrests and extortion by security personnel were so great that Syrians often avoided mentioning the word “dollar” altogether – using code words like “parsley” instead.

new HTS– led government has since allowed transactions in dollars and on Saturday announced a new set of unified custom fees that it said cut fees by 50 to 60 percent. It added that lower fees on raw material imports would help protect local producers.

“Our main task during this period is to pump blood into the arteries of the economy, preserve institutions and serve citizens,” Interior Trade Minister Maher Khalil al-Hassan told state news agency SANA this month.

Imported goods that flowed from Turkey to the northwestern province of Idlib, led by HTS for many years, are beginning to flow to the rest of the country, as well as from Lebanon, where vehicles mostly travel across the border.

Local brands tend to be significantly cheaper than foreign brands. For example, a bottle of Syrian ketchup Dolly was sold in a supermarket for 14,000 Syrian pounds (about $1), while Heinz sold for 78,000.

But other staples have become affordable again. Lebanon’s bananas, which went from being an everyday item to a luxury during the civil war, have arrived from the Lila coast, cutting the price of a kilogram by about a fifth, sellers said.

Mahmud, a 35-year-old vegetable and fruit seller, said the prices of all his products, whether imported or otherwise, have fallen in the last month. Foreign pineapples now cost a fifth of what they used to cost, and local potatoes a quarter.

He blames the end of mass extortion under Assad, where farmers must hand over their crops to wholesalers at military checkpoints, many manned by Bashar’s brother Maher’s notoriously brutal Fourth Division. This forces them to pay higher prices to cover their losses.

“What can a farmer say to them? He needs to make a living,” Mahmud said, adding that he had to hand over bags of goods when officers and soldiers raided him.

His stall in the central Shalan market was empty on Saturday morning, even as Syrians tightened their purse strings due to delays in salary payments.

“But I feel safe,” he said. “You’re no longer walking around squinting everywhere, worried they’re coming after you.”

The return of another nostalgic brand, France’s The Laughing Cow processed cheese cubes used for sandwiches by generations of Syrian children, has sparked jokes online.

“How long has it been since you saw this smile?” said a Syrian in a video on Instagram of the brand’s famous bovine mascot. “The donkey is gone and the cow is back.”