The Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers clarifies the bases on which it relies in its recommendations on the management of the import file

Damascus-SANA

The Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers confirmed that it bases its recommendations regarding the management of the import file on the policy of balance between meeting the needs of the local market of the necessary necessary products in accordance with the approved priorities on the one hand, and taking into account the size of the available national resources of foreign exchange on the other hand, and also based in the context of approaching the issue of allowing the import of materials from which a local product is available on the need for a balance between protecting producers on the one hand and protecting consumers on the other hand, as market stability and balance require Balancing the interests of both producers and consumers.

The committee explained in a statement today about the circulation of some websites and Facebook pages subject to the recommendation of the Economic Committee "to allow the import of ceramics" that the basic ceramic material for the building and construction sector, was always allowed import, and its import was temporarily prevented in light of the rationalization of

Importing and managing the volume of foreign exchange available nationally to finance imports, pointing to the receipt of several claims from national economic actors recently requesting the authorization of the import of ceramics for several reasons, including the significant rise in the prices of locally produced ceramics, in addition to the lack of certain sizes or other specific quality required for some sectors, which led to the emergence of a semi-monopoly situation for the ceramic market in the country by local producers in light of the wide difference between the prices, qualities and quality of some foreign and local products while Any national protectionist policy must ensure a minimum level of competitiveness among domestic producers.

The Economic Committee indicated that in order to achieve a balance between consumers of ceramics in the local market and local producers of this material, the following recommendation was taken:

- Allowing the import of ceramics of locally produced and non-locally produced sizes, provided that an enclosure is imposed for the benefit of the state treasury of 10,<> Syrian pounds per square meter of imported ceramics, and this means imposing additional costs on the prices of imported products so that the local product still has preferential advantages compared to imported products.

- The indicative price of imported ceramics is set at $ 9 per square meter imported, which is a price that far exceeds the real prices of imported ceramics, and this also means imposing relatively high duties and taxes on imports, which contributes to raising the prices of imported ceramics also in order to give a preferential advantage to local producers.

- Maintaining the state of preventing the import of ceramics under the current situation means recognizing the imbalance in the market of this material in the local market in terms of unfair prices, and the lack of some sizes and some required qualities.

The Economic Committee renewed its keenness to support the local product, as the government adopts an important program to replace imports and support the local product, but the local product must be based on the rules of competitiveness and efficiency and take into account the interests of end consumers to avoid not achieving limited gains at the expense of the sector's balance completely at the national level.

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