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العربية
Exclusive-Deir Ezzor
The Assad regime ’Military and Political Security branch, west of the Euphrates , conducted a campaign of raids and arrests that targeted farmers and owners of smuggling ferries in the “Shamiya” area in the western Deir Ezzor countryside, on charges of smuggling the cotton crop to the towns of Al-Shamitiyah and Hawaij Thiab in the Al-Jazeera region.
The “Assad regime and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had recently set the price of a kilogram of cotton preferred by both parties at 2,500 Syrian pounds,(SYP) in the context of open competition for the monopoly of the crop. Farmers refuse to deal with the Assad regime ,as they are unsure that the regime provides the agreed price and their expecting that the regime will not give them more than 2,000 pounds per kilo after deducting marketing commissions, weight, association fees, construction stamps, the war effort and the local administration, while the Autonomous Administration adheres to the specified price, and works to transfer it to private gins in Lattakia or in Iraq and Turkey.
The Assad regime has a monopoly on the sale of empty cotton shells of white cloth at a price of 11,500 SYP, and it does not accept the types made of nylon.
The cotton cultivation sector has suffered due to low production in recent years, because of high prices of fuels, fertilizers and pesticides, and the lack of manpower. Cotton is the second most important strategic commodity after oil on the economic level. However, the Assad regime deliberately manufactured a third of the production and exported two thirds.
