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The Central Bank of Syria issues the national currency, the Syrian pound, and exercises control over all other banks that operate in the country. The Commercial Bank of Syria finances trade, markets agricultural products, and carries out foreign-exchange operations. The Real Estate Bank finances the building industry and carries out all ordinary banking operations. An industrial development bank finances the private industrial sector, while an agricultural bank extends loans to farmers and agricultural cooperatives. The Popular Credit Bank makes loans to small manufacturers, artisans, and production cooperatives. There is a nationalized insurance company. Since 2000 a number of small private banks have been established as part of the gradual approach toward liberal economic reform. A stock exchange, the Damascus Securities Exchange, formally opened for trading in Damascus in 2009.
During the Cold War, Syria was offered financial and technical assistance free or at minimum interest rates from socialist countries such as China, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union, and it has continued to receive aid at favorable conditions from China into the 21st century. At the end of the 20th century, Syria received substantial sums from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for its support in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91); aid with more-stringent conditions has been sought from France and other Western countries.
Trade
Syria has an unfavorable balance of trade, and loss of revenue from abroad during the Syrian Civil War has led GDP to plummet. Prior to the war, the trade deficit was offset by revenues from tourism, transit trade returns, foreign aid, and earnings of Syrians overseas. Goods from Turkey, China, Egypt, and Russia account for the bulk of Syria’s imports. Major import items include industrial and agricultural machinery, motor vehicles and accessories, pharmaceutical products, food, and fabric. Lebanon consumes a significant proportion of Syrian exports, which include petroleum, phosphates, ginned cotton, cotton seeds, barley, lentils, cotton and woolen fabrics, dried fruit, vegetables, skins, and raw wool. Other major purchasers of exports include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. Foreign trade is regulated by the state.
Services
Syria’s service sector contributes heavily to the country’s overall income, and at the beginning of the 21st century the sector employed about half of the country’s workforce. Syria attracts tourism with a rich treasure trove of historical attractions that includes ancient and Classical ruins, Muslim and Christian religious sites, and Crusader and medieval Islamic architecture; some of these have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites. Most tourists come from Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey, attracted to Syria’s relatively mild summer climate and popular entertainment. A much smaller proportion of tourists come from Europe and the United States. Privatization of the tourism sector stimulated growth in revenues during the 1990s. Since the early 2000s, privatization in the areas of real estate, insurance, and trade has played a greater role in stimulating growth.
Labor and taxation
The General Federation of Workers was founded in 1938 and has grown tremendously in power and scope. Composed only of industrial employees, it is represented on industrial boards and is responsible for a wide range of social services. There is also a federation for artisans and vocational workers, and there are associations for the professions and a General Federation of Farmers. Trade unions are obliged to organize under the Baʿath-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions.
Labor legislation establishes minimum-wage limits, prohibits child labor, and organizes relations between workers and employers. But economic and social conditions as well as the extent of unemployment make rigorous enforcement impractical. Employees in heavy industry receive the highest industrial wages, textile workers the lowest. State employees have more job security. The major portion of the average salary is generally spent on housing and food.
Tax income accounts for more than one-third of governmental revenue. Indirect taxes, which produce the most tax revenue, are levied on industrial products, customs, exports, and state domains. Direct taxes are levied on wages, circulating capital, livestock, and the transfer of property.
Transportation
Syria’s road network is the chief means of transporting goods and passengers. Major roads include the highway between Damascus and Aleppo and the road between Damascus and Baghdad.
Syria’s railways are well developed. A northern line runs northeastward from Aleppo into Turkey and then east along the border to Qamishli, where it crosses the northeastern extremity of Syria en route to Baghdad. The Hejaz Railway runs from Damascus to Amman, and another runs from Aleppo to Tripoli. Aleppo and Damascus are also linked by rail. Smaller lines run between Homs and Riyaq (Lebanon) and between Beirut and Damascus. A railway also runs from Latakia to Aleppo, Al-Hasakah (passing by the Euphrates Dam), and Qamishli. Another line extends northwest from Aleppo to the Turkish border at Maydān Ikbiz. From Homs a line runs west to the port of Tartus, and a line also runs east to the phosphate mines near Tadmur, opening up the desert interior to the Mediterranean.
The country’s chief ports, Latakia and Tartus, were built after independence. Latakia has two main jetties, as well as wharves and warehouses. Port commerce was dampened by the closure of the Syrian border with Iraq in the early 1980s, although with the border’s reopening in the late 1990s, shipments to Iraq as part of the United Nations (UN) oil for food program boosted the Syrian shipping industry.
Syria has international airports at Damascus and Aleppo, and several domestic airports are located throughout the country, including those at Qamishli, Latakia, Deir al-Zour, and Tadmur. International services connect Syria with Arab, other Asian, and European countries. Domestic and international services are provided by Syrian Arab Airlines.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
During Baʿath Party rule
The constitution of 1973 declared that Syria constitutes an integral part of the Arab homeland, that all legislative power lies with the people, and that freedom of expression and equality before the law are guaranteed. However, it enshrined the dominance of the Arab Socialist Baʿath Party in the political system and the enforcement of constitutional principles was selective; especially from the late 1970s, constitutionally guaranteed rights were increasingly suppressed under Pres. Hafez al-Assad’s rule.
The constitution was replaced in 2012 under Assad’s son Bashar al-Assad, who had replaced him as president in 2000. The new constitution, which removed the Baʿath Party from the center of the political system, had been drafted in response to the Syrian uprising that began the year before and was evolving into a civil war. It did not significantly differ from the 1973 constitution, however, and it did little to roll back the entrenchment of the Assad dynasty. Under the 2012 constitution, Syria was a unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house (People’s Assembly), whose members were elected to four-year terms. The president, the head of state, was directly elected and limited to two seven-year terms, a provision that took effect with the presidential election of 2014, and had the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister as head of government.
In December 2024 the civil war brought Assad’s rule to an end after rebels, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Damascus by force. HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa appointed an interim government and days later suspended the 2012 constitution. In late January 2025 Sharaa was formally appointed president by the interim government.
Transitional constitution under Ahmed al-Sharaa
As the new government sought to stabilize the country and set out to draft a new constitution, Sharaa in March 2025 promulgated a temporary constitution for governance during the transitional period. The constitution, which specified that the transitional government would remain in place for up to five years or until a new constitution is adopted, formalized a presidential system in which the president is appointed by the People’s Assembly, although it does not stipulate when the president’s term in office ends or a mechanism for the president’s removal from office. The president appoints one-third of the members of the People’s Assembly and a committee formed by the president appoints the remaining two-thirds. All members of the People’s Assembly serve a term of two and a half years.
Local government
Syria is divided into governorates (one of which, Damascus, is a governorate-level city), manāṭiq (districts), and nawāḥī (subdistricts). The governors, or muḥāfiẓūn, enjoy some power within their administrative divisions, but local government is centralized and is dependent upon the minister of the interior in the national government.
Justice
The principles of Syrian law and equity derive basically from Islamic jurisprudence and secondarily from the French civil code. Summary courts try civil, commercial, and penal cases. The headquarters of each administrative district has a First Instance Court for criminal cases. The capital city of each governorate also has a court of appeal. Damascus houses a high court of appeal and a constitutional court, as well as a military tribunal and the mufti’s court for the maintenance of Islamic law. Various non-Muslim sects each have their own courts with jurisdiction over personal-status cases.
Political process
Under Assad, most authority was wielded by the ruling Arab Socialist Baʿath Party. After its foundation in the 1940s, the party underwent radical internal changes as a result of successive coups d’état and internal power struggles. The party had branch organizations in many Arab countries, each headed by its own regional leadership. The organs of administration were the National Command, the Regional Command, and the People’s Assembly; the latter operated as a legislature and became formally independent of the Baʿath Party under the 2012 constitution. The supreme national leadership was composed of representatives from each regional branch, who were elected by their own party congresses. The regional leadership for Syria was the highest authority in the country but was subordinate to the national leadership. In 2018, however, the National Command was abolished and the Regional Command became known as the Central Command. Actual power resided in the presidency. All political parties were officially linked together as the National Progressive Front, which was dominated by the Baʿath Party.
Although Syria has universal adult suffrage, elections are generally not held by international observers as free and fair. Women are able to participate in the political system and have held a number of positions, and in the early 21st century almost one-eighth of the members of parliament were women. The Alawites, one of Syria’s religious minorities, dominated Syrian politics from the 1960s to the 2020s.
Security
Military service is compulsory for all adult males; college students receive deferments. Military service provides general and technical—as well as military—education and training. The army is the largest contingent of Syria’s armed forces and is responsible for defense, public works, road construction, and public health. There is also an air force, a small navy, and reserve units for all three branches. Palestinian Arab guerrilla organizations operate from Syria and have training facilities there. During the Syrian Civil War, the Iranian Quds Force and fighters from Hezbollah in Lebanon supplemented Syria’s armed forces.
Health and welfare
Most endemic diseases in Syria have been eliminated. Health facilities include state and private hospitals and sanatoriums, as well as hospitals and outpatient clinics of the armed forces. There are also a number of public and private outpatient clinics, as well as maternal and child-care, antituberculosis, malaria eradication, and rural health centers. Child mortality is caused mostly by measles and diseases of the digestive and respiratory systems. Tuberculosis and trachoma are widespread, particularly among the Bedouin, peasants, and residents of poorer urban areas.
Health conditions and sanitation in the cities, towns, and larger villages are generally satisfactory. Running water is supplied to almost all houses, buildings, and public places. Each municipality maintains its streets and collects refuse regularly. Although the government has offered incentives for doctors to serve rural areas, medical services are unevenly distributed, with the majority of doctors concentrated in the large cities.
The Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor is empowered to find work for, and distribute cash allowances to, the unemployed. The ministry also encourages such youth activities as athletics, scouting, literacy campaigns, and the organization of cooperatives. The government gives substantial grants to private welfare societies.
The high birth rate in Syria has caused family lands to be broken up into ever smaller lots and has reduced the standard of living of many rural inhabitants.
Housing
The old houses in Damascus are built of soft unbaked bricks, wood, and stone. Contemporary buildings are built of concrete, while hewn stone is reserved for official buildings, mosques, and churches.
The pace of change from an agricultural to an industrial economy, and the accompanying migration to the cities, led to an acute shortage of housing. Aggravating the shortage, young adult males migrating from rural areas to the cities are increasingly breaking with tradition by leaving their parental homes for their own. The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs undertakes the construction of blocks of low-income flats in the cities.
Education
About four-fifths of the Syrian population is literate. Schooling, which begins at age six, is divided into six years of compulsory primary, three years of lower secondary, and three years of upper secondary education. Lower and upper secondary schools provide general (which prepares for university entrance) or vocational curricula. Secondary schools are open to all elementary students who wish to continue their education. Within this framework, increased attention is being given to technical education. The University of Damascus, founded in 1923, is the country’s oldest university. Other universities include the University of Aleppo (1960), Latakia University (1971; formerly Tishreen University), and Homs University (1979; formerly Al-Baʿath University). All levels of education have been expanded substantially since 1963.
Cultural life
Contemporary Syrian culture blends Arab, Mediterranean, and European elements. Syrians are keenly interested in international politics and culture, which many follow through national radio and television programs as well as those broadcast from other Middle Eastern countries and from Europe. The Ministry of Culture and National Guidance has been active in directing and promoting the nation’s cultural life. An important objective has been the affirmation of the Arab national character in the face of foreign cultural influences.
