At the market in the Jordanian town of Ramtha hope is rising that the Syrian regime’s territorial gains just across the border might help bring business back to life.
Since war broke out in Syria more than seven years ago, the steady flow of goods coming across the frontier has dried up — coming to a complete halt when it was closed in 2015.
Those years of conflict have dealt a major blow to the economy of Jordan — dependent in large part on trade with its neighbour.
Now an offensive by Syrian regime forces is seeing President Bashar al-Assad claw back territory in the southern frontier province of Daraa.
The importance to Jordan of trade with Syria is underlined by the president of Ramtha’s chamber of commerce, Abdelsalam Thiabat.
“It used to bring hundreds of millions of dollars into the state coffers,” he said.
“More than 4,000 stalls (in Ramtha) depended on Syrian merchandise. And more than 2,000 families lived off the revenues of the roughly 2,000 taxis or vehicles that carried the goods across the border daily,” Thiabat said. “If the Syrian state retakes control of the border and the crossing points then it will relaunch the economy of Ramtha in particular and Jordan in general.”
Overland trade between the two countries was worth more than $615 million in 2010 but started falling after the conflict broke out and ground to a halt when the border was shut.
The goods that used to flow from the north have been replaced by products from China.
Food, clothing, fabrics and household items from thousands of kilometres away fill the shelves of some dozen shops in the historic market building. But nonetheless the Chinese imports are no real substitute to fill the gaps left behind.
“The market is dead,” lamented 32-year-old baker Asser.
The Syrian conflict has taken a heavy political and economic toll on Jordan, a resource-poor desert kingdom that is almost entirely landlocked.
Jordan’s economy grew by less than two per cent in 2017, compared with more than six per cent annually in the five years before the war.
“One of the main causes for the economic crisis in Jordan has been the closure of the border with Syria,” said Ahmad Awad, director of Jordanian economic research centre Phenix. Opening the border “will facilitate the return of Syrian refugees”. — AFP
Mussa Hattar
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