Small traders get food into Syria at soaring prices as majors withdraw

TRADE to Syria has exploded along the border crossing of Oncupinar, Turkey, and the hilly border between countries with delivery of goods to the rebels creating assured profit for traders.

Lebanon also does a brisk trade in containerised wheat and sugar from Beirut with wheat prices rising 10 per cent. Fuel is trucked in from Lebanon and Syria without government intervention.

The absence of international companies due to payment problems in the civil war has opened the way to smaller firms.

"What we are seeing is suppliers delivering goods to ports like Turkey's Mersin and then local companies handle it from there," an unidentified shipping source told Reuters.

Mersin is a key trading point between the countries with goods arriving for Syria to be repacked and then transported to the buffer zone inside Syria where it is picked up by Syrians, mostly rebels.

The war has driven up prices for commodities with potatoes selling five times their normal price.

"Direct trading is driven by people with direct contacts on the Syrian side who are willing to pay in cash," said another source in Europe.

World Food Programme's coordinator for Syria Muhannad Hadi said Damascus prices are "extremely worrying" due to many commodities being no longer available with prices rising 300 per cent in some cases.