Syria’s caretaker PM Bashir: Country has very low foreign currency reserves

By Reuters 17 December 2024, 12:51 pm

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This handout image made available by the Telegram channel of the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's new transitional prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir chairing a meeting of the new cabinet in Damascus on December 10, 2024. (Stringer/SANA/AFP)

Syrian caretaker Prime Minister Mohammad al-Bashir tells Al Jazeera TV that Syria has very low foreign currency reserves.

Current and former Syrian officials have told Reuters that the dollar reserves have been nearly depleted because Bashar al-Assad’s government increasingly used them to fund food, fuel and its war effort.

The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves amount to just around $200 million in cash, one of the sources tells Reuters, while another says the US dollar reserves are “in the hundreds of millions.”