CBS Works for Gradual Return of Dollar

DAMASCUS, (ST) -The Governor of the Central Bank of Syria (CBS), Dr. Adib Mayaleh, said that the tumble of the dollar in the Syrian market due primarily, in addition to the actions taken by the Central Bank, to the recession of the reasons that led to the rise of its prices quixotically through the exploitation of citizens’ concerns about the current crisis in Syria, pointing out that these reasons centered on the decline of the pressures exerted by the countries and other bodies targeting Syria, which had a negative impact on a slice of citizens that compelled them to save their money in foreign currencies particularly the U.S. dollar.

“The decline of these pressures has paved the way until things straighten out and therefore it was a great satisfaction to a slice of people that have been affected and thus the citizen who was affected by this situation began to return to normal life gradually and what is more useful to him is also the start of the recovery of the cycle of domestic production to meet the needs of citizens, whose rate of consumption will rise again as a natural result of keeping their distance from saving and they start spending of their savings on their daily lives,” Dr. Mayaleh pointed out.

 Those data, he stressed,  conduce to the return of the national economy cycle to normal levels, taking into account the fact that this return would be gradual as it slowed down gradually with the beginnings of the crisis that befell Syria, adding that the return to normal life gradually reduce the demand for the dollar and reduce of its brightness in the eyes of the Syrian citizens.

Effects of Deferred Impact

The Governor of the Central Bank of Syria has underlined the importance of the decisions and policies taken by the monetary authorities in Syria, that these decisions began to give real effect on a large -scale in the current period, taking into consideration  that monetary decisions do not give their effect immediately.

Such  decisions, he clarified, require a period of time so as to give the results and their implications effectively, taking into account the existence of a set of data and decisions that affect the exchange rate of foreign exchange in addition to a package of decrees and other legislations affecting in the exchange rate and determine its final results.

 Dr. Mayaleh considers the results reached by the Central Bank of Syria in the foreign currency exchange rate as good and important, but the most important of which is to maintain and ensure the continuity because of its importance in the purchasing power of the Syrian pound and value and thus its impact on the structure of the Syrian national economy.

Importance of Price Stability

What the citizens say and their expectations of a decline of the exchange rate to levels close to 150 pounds to the dollar by the Eid al-Adha and the expectations of the Central Bank of Syria in this area depending on the data that converge at the central bank, Dr. Mayaleh said that the monetary authorities’ work today aims to achieve one result, which is the stability of the exchange rate and stay away of instability which the exchange rate exposes from time to time in order to avoid the negative effects resulting from this fluctuation for the national economy, particularly imports from countries abroad and thus the reflection of these effects on the prices of goods and their values that bought by the Syrian citizen from local markets.

“The stability of the exchange rate will lead to price stability in general as a natural consequence of the ability of importers of the national merchants to fix the prices of deals of commodity that they import according to the current stable price,” Dr. Mayaleh added.

Deflationary Policy

At the beginning of the crisis in Syria the Governor of  the Central Bank of Syria said that the CBS has a strategic reserve of foreign exchange for two full years and after two and a half year, the bank still has an abundant amounts of foreign currencies and  the Syrian pound is still strong despite all the difficulties encountered and the challenges experienced.

“Since the beginning of the crisis, the Syrian monetary authorities adopted deflationary policy where monetary authorities economized at its dealing to the dollar in order to maintain as much as possible from the strategic reserves of foreign exchange and did not adopt expansionary policy in this area that depletes the reserve, pointing out that the Central Bank of Syria continued, despite that, funding basic operations of the national economy such as financing the foreign imports due to its importance, in addition to the policy of spending foreign exchange for the purposes of intervention to curb the rises  occurring in the price of exchange rate in terms of not selling or spending one dollar, but in its right place,” the Governor explained.

Dr. Mayaleh, in this domain, said that the interventions practiced by the Central Bank of Syria in this area did not cost the public treasury of the state of the strategic reserves.

Sharif al -Khatib