Imports: $4 billion (c.i.f., 1994 est.) commodities: foodstuffs 21%, metal products 17%, machinery 15% partners: EC 37%, former CEMA countries 15%, US and Canada 10% (1991)
External debt: $19.4 billion (1993 est.)
Industrial production: growth rate NA%
Electricity: capacity: 4,160,000 kW production: 13.2 billion kWh consumption per capita: 865 kWh (1993)
Industries: textiles, food processing, beverages, tobacco, phosphate rock mining, petroleum
Agriculture: accounts for 30% of GDP and one-third of labor force; all major crops (wheat, barley, cotton, lentils, chickpeas) grown mainly on rain-watered land causing wide swings in production; animal products - beef, lamb, eggs, poultry, milk; not self-sufficient in grain or livestock products
Illicit drugs: a transit country for Lebanese and Turkish refined
cocaine going to Europe and heroin and hashish bound for regional and
Western markets
Economic aid:
recipient: no US aid; about $4.2 billion in loans and grants from Arab
and Western donors 1990-92 as a result of Gulf war stance
Currency: 1 Syrian pound (#S) = 100 piastres
Exchange rates: Syrian pounds (#S) per US$1 - 11.2 (official fixed rate), 26.6 (blended rate used by the UN and diplomatic missions), 42.0 (neighboring country rate - applies to most state enterprise imports), 46.0 - 53.0 (offshore rate) (yearend 1993)