A number of Damascus merchants launch initiatives to reduce prices

During their meeting today with Minister of Interior Trade and Consumer Protection Talal Al-Barazi at Damascus Chamber of Commerce, a number of Damascus merchants launched initiatives to reduce prices from ten to twenty-five percent for basic foodstuffs, consumer goods, clothing and shoes.

During the meeting, the merchants reviewed the reality of commercial markets and ways to ensure the flow of goods and stability of prices and to reduce them in a way that guarantees the interests of merchants and citizens and tackles any problem facing that.

Al-Barazi stressed the necessity of standing together against the monopolistic merchants and industrialists to thwart the agendas of Syria’s enemies who are currently waging an economic war, underlining the need for cooperation and partnership between the government and the merchants.

Al-Barazi highlighted the merchants’ sense of social responsibility through which fifty percent of the economic conditions can be addressed.

Al-Barazi called on merchants to start taking initiatives to reduce prices and make discounts on the prices of materials, foodstuff and others in Damascus to be an example to be followed in other governorates, clarifying that starting from the capital Damascus means the spread of such initiatives later in all governorates.

Al-Barazi confirmed that monopoly and manipulation of the basic materials of the citizen is a form of violations that represent a crime, which require punishment, stressing that all problems that contribute to high prices of the basic materials of the citizen must be solved.

Al-Barazi pointed to the positive intervention of the Ministry in the market through the Syrian Trade selling halls, whose prices remain permanently lower than the market by 15 to 30 percent, depending on the type of material and its availability.

In turn, a number of merchants in their interventions demanded opening the commercial markets until ten o’clock at night to return the commercial movement as it was previously.  The merchants also casted light on supporting the farmer and producer by marketing some products that they could not market through opening Syrian Trade selling halls for these products as well as not exporting the materials that the market currently needs such as vegetables, fruits and meat and activating the role of citrus offices in the coast.

Merchants called for the formation of a joint committee between the Ministry and experienced merchants to set appropriate pricing for basic materials, food, and clothing. Educating the citizen in how to submit complaints, and pursuing websites that create instability in prices by spreading rumors were reviewed during the meeting.

Head of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, Muhammad Ghassan Al-Qalaa, highlighted the importance of the meeting in identifying the concerns of merchants with regard to prices and the flow of goods in the markets easily.

For his part, Secretary of Damascus Chamber of Commerce, Mohamed Hamsho, called on merchants to expand initiatives, whether by lowering prices or making offers for long periods as a contribution in shouldering social responsibility and cooperating with the state in bearing the burdens of current phase, stressing the important role of the public sector, which was the true supporter of the state during years of the crisis.

Inas Abdulkareem