Syrian agriculture in a competitive world economy: Opportunities and challenges

摘要

The analysis of the respective performance of 11 agro-industrial commodity chains representative of Syrian agriculture indicates that the strategic cotton and wheat crops do not have comparative advantage contrary to olive oil, tomato, and orange productions, for which exportation is developing. With the increased opening of the Syrian economy through its membership in regional and global trade agreements, direct and indirect subventions to the cotton and wheat sectors are likely to decrease. Action should therefore be taken to minimize the social costs relating to these two crops by, in particular, improving their water use efficiency. Shifting domestic resource allocation to commodity chains with comparative advantage provides opportunities of mitigating the adverse effects of liberalization on cotton and wheat producers. However, maximizing these opportunities will necessitate strengthening the comparative advantage of these export commodity chains with respect to quality management and prospecting for new market outlets.