Syria Crisis: Will India's Exports Be Affected? Apex Trade Body Decodes | Exclusive

With the ouster of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, the crisis that unfolded added more uncertainty to the continuing geopolitical turmoil in the world.

This might impact India’s energy and trade cooperation. However, the Director General and CEO of the Federation of Indian Export Organisation, Ajay Sahai believes this will have an almost negligible impact as India was anyway not trading with Syria that much. Sahai in conversation with Republic Business said that trade with Syria took a hit because of multiple reasons such as sanctions, problems on the banking front, and the Middle Eastern crisis added to the woes. 

“I don’t think the Syrian Crisis will impact trade as there was almost negligible trade between India and Syria because of sanctions and also because of Middle East uncertainty whatever trade was happening was through Lebanon. It's going to have no impact on trade.” “The bilateral trade remains minor compared to India’s global trade and the Middle East crisis has already impacted it adversely,” Sahai opined.

Trade With Syria

India’s exports with Syria stood at $159.33 in 2019-2020, which declined to $124.26 million in 2020-2021, and $105.46 million in 2021-2022. In FY23, the export with Syria stood at $103.43 million. In FY24, the exports between India and Syria dipped to $63.20 million, witnessing a degrowth of 38.90 per cent.

India’s export with Syria makes up only 0.0145 per cent of the global exports. In the current fiscal year, between April to September, the trade between India and Syria stood at $37.82 million. On the import side, the growth is witnessed as the imports from Syria have risen from $15.34 million in FY20 to $18.33 million in FY24.

Export From India

According to Sahai, India’s exports to Syria primarily consisted of Sugar, Rice, Pharmaceuticals, Polyester Yarns and Fabrics cosmetics, and synthetic perfumery.  Imports from Syria include Raw wool, animal hides, leather, and agricultural products. 
 
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