Syria gets local currency printed in Russia before Assad's fall
Syria's central bank announced that a shipment of Syrian currency had arrived at Damascus airport from Russia, where the banknotes were printed during the regime of ousteds
president Bashar al-Assad.
The central bank did not specify the amount of currency that had arrived, but a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters it was in the "hundreds of billions of Syrian pounds," equivalent to tens of millions of US dollars.
The source said the cash had been printed in Russia under Assad's rule but had not been shipped to Syria by the time he was toppled by Islamist rebels in early December 2024.
Syria's new leadership ordered the Russian company printing the currency to stop after Assad fled to Moscow, the source said, without providing details on what prompted Friday's delivery of the previously printed cash.
Syria has been facing a liquidity crunch since Assad's ouster, with Syria's new central bank governor Maysaa Sabreen telling Reuters in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against a surge in inflation.
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