Fallbacks of “Arab Spring”: USD 35 billion in economic losses and 20 million of unemployed Arab!

The World bank issued a report about the costs of the Syrian crisis and the emergence of ISIS on the economies of a number of countries affected by this war in the Middle East, namely Turkey, Syria, Lebanon. Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, which withstood economic losses in their production amounting to USD 35 billion as a combined effect of the Syria war and the rise of ISIS.   The report notes that Lebanon is amongst the most affected countries of the region. The WB report went on to note that whilst neighborhood countries suffered losses in terms of drops in average individual income but did not record a fall in GDP.  Indeed, the influx of refugees into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey resulted in increasing consumption, investment, and supply of labor.  The report also added that the GDP of these countries increased but at a lesser rates then population growth, thus negatively affecting living standards. As a result, per capita income dropped by 11% in Lebanon, and 1.5% in Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, when compared to what may have been achieved if not for the war.

For its part, the Al Hayat newspaper noted in its issue of yesterday that the “Arab Spring” revolts had negative repercussions on the job market as unemployment increased by 3 points from 14% in 2010 to 17% in 2013 while the number of unemployed has skyrocketed to 20 million persons according to the statistics of the ILO.  The newspaper added that the decline in growth rate of countries who witnessed the so-called Arab Spring has increased deficit and negatively impacted the balance of trade and depleted the reserves of currencies, lowered the value of the national currency, caused high inflation and raised the cost of living.  All these negative results have exacerbated poverty and increased the number of poor people with some countries moving from the situation of financial surplus to a situation of deficit because of extra spending to maintain social stability given the fickle security and political situation.

(Source: Al- Nahar and Al-Hayat 22 December 2014)