Hussam Muhammed, Baladi News, Damascus
The Syrian regime has announced through its Minister of Economy "Adib Mayaleh" stopping the imports from the Arab countries, on top of which the Lebanese country, instructing his employees to direct the policy of importing towards Moscow and Tehran which he described as "the friendly countries".
The economic war declared unofficially by "Mayaleh", in which he armed himself with the Lebanese decision issued months ago to stop importing the agricultural products from Syria. Mayaleh has also issued a decision in which he prevented granting any leave of exporting to Lebanon as a punishment against the Lebanese decision of stopping importing from his regime.
The Lebanese Agriculture Minister "Akram Shehaib" had issued in June a decision in which he extended the decision of preventing the introduction of trucks of vegetables and fruit of Syrian origin to Lebanon until the 1st of February 2017, in order to protect the Lebanese farmer and his production, he claimed.
Statistics of 2016, according to Lebanese economic sources, show that during the first four months of this year, 17 thousand tons of Lebanese bananas have been exported to Syria in exchange for importing 27 thousand tons of vegetables and fruit from Syria.
The Syrian journalist "Omar Muhammed" talked to Baladi News about the dependence of many merchants close to the Syrian regime on the illegal ways on the Syrian-Lebanese borders in order to smuggle huge quantities of vegetables, fruit and citruses from and into Lebanon.
Muhammed said: "most of the trucks enter Lebanon through the smuggling ways which are under the control of Hezbollah and which are known as "the military wary" that is special for the party's forces and vehicles which enter Syria for fighting.
The journalist noted that the Syrian people are suffering from poor living conditions in light of the al-Assad's intransigence to stay in power. What has happened in the country due to the policy pursued by the Syrian regime through transferring the demands of the Syrian people for change and freedom into a bloody sectarian war, made it wide open before the world's mercenary to enter the country under the pretext of protecting the holy sites and fighting terrorism.
It should be noted that the Director of the Russian-Syrian exports village in the Syrian government announced, concurrently with the Lebanese decision to stop importing the agricultural products from Syria, Moscow's contracting with three Syrian merchant ships that will be used in transporting vegetables, fruit and locally produced goods to the ports of Russia through the Syrian coast, which Moscow is controlling almost entirely.
The Syrian-Russian exports director at that time "Khaldoun al-Ahmad" said through "al-Watan" pro newspaper that these three ships arrived at the port of Latakia in preparation for transferring goods, vegetables and fruit from Syria to Russia. The source noted that the exports village contracted long ago with a Russian company to provide three ships to freight the Syrian goods through the "Green Corridor" line towards the Russian port "Novorossiysk".