Country Economic Forecasts > Syrian Arab Republic

The Syrian conflict continues to get bloodier, more complex and less likely to be resolved or even contained. The uprising against President Assad has evolved into a battle along multiple fronts, including between Sunnis and Shia, a regional proxy war pitting Saudi Arabia and Turkey against Iran and even the involvement of a confident Russia to fill the vacuum left by the US. With Russias involvement and in particular its air power, the war has swung strongly in favour of the pro-Assad forces, but even so, the war will not end. Slim hopes that an internationally negotiated ceasefire agreed by the US and Russia on February 12 would lead to a political solution were soon dashed by if anything an intensification of the war by Russia.The Syrian Center for Policy Research has estimated that economic losses from the conflict amount to nearly five times the countrys GDP in 2010. We assume no economic recovery over the forecast horizon, with GDP falling a further 10% in 2016 and 5% in 2017. Growth will remain stagnant in 2018 and 2019, with a slow recovery thereafter resulting in 2010 GDP levels taking a generation to be reached.