Turkey to impose 30 pct taxes on Syrian goods for al-Assad postponed free …

According to Bloomberg, it report that Customs Trade Minister Hayati Yazici declared that Turkey will levy taxes of roughly 30 percent tax on Syria“Syrian goods after President Bashar al-Assad suspended a free-trade agreement and imposed taxes on Turkish exports.

Another measure excluding Syria“Syrian vehicles that are 20 years and older from entering Turkey and alternative transit routes to enable Turkish exporters from bypassing its southern neighbor add to efforts targeting Syria“Syria’s economy, Yazici told reporters in Ankara today, according to state-run Anatolia news agency.

Syria“Syria’s relations with Turkey, fifth-biggest trading partner and export market, have been deteriorating since August, when Assad failed to take steps he agreed to with Turkey to end his crackdown on dissent, which the United Nations said has cost more than 4,000 lives since mid-March. Since then, Turkey has halted joint energy exploration, joined the Arab League’s sanctions against its once-close ally, threatened to expand embargoes and started shipping routes to Egypt and Lebanon to circumvent Syria“Syria, which had been blocking Turkish trucks.

“They are sawing off the branch they’re sitting on,” Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan told reporters in televised remarks from Istanbul. “These aren’t moves that a country with such a need for cash and a seriously pressured economy should be making.”

Syria“Syria has responded to Turkish measures in kind, imposing a 30 percent tax on imports from Turkey last week, the state-run Syria“Syrian Arab news agency reported.

Turkish exports to Syria“Syria last year amounted to 1.5 billion euros and imports were 460 million euros, or 4.1 percent of all Syria“Syrian exports, according to trade data from the European Union, the Arab country’s biggest trading partner.