Maiyyaleh: Pumping Large Amounts of Foreign Exchange to Restore Stability to the Market

(ST)- The Governor of the Central Bank of Syria (CBS) Adib Maiyyaleh said recently that the bank had pumped during the last few days large sums of foreign currency, mostly dedicated to the financing of imports in order to restore stability to the market, and follow the rise in the dollar exchange rate on the black market to above the 160 pounds.

 Mr.  Maiyyaleh said to local press that ” the bank will follow up this intervention in the market to meet the demands of importers, which have doubled during the past few days in order to import basic materials and the initial requirements of industry, adding that “the increase in requests for importers indicates the start of the return of the economic wheel and the recovery of national economy referring to the work to raise the manner of this intervention gradually.”

Earlier, Mr.  Maiyyaleh announced that ” the bank is ready to meet the market’s need of foreign exchange to finance necessary and essential imports,” pointing out that ” the bank’s success in increasing the proportion of the demands of the pieces submitted for the purposes of importation to 55% of the approvals granted by the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, in order to relieve the pressure on the parallel market exchange rate.”

The CBS finances a number of goods in respect of import operations, according to the central bank rate, while reports talk about a low amount of foreign exchange, due to the events the country is witnessing.

“The devaluation of the Syrian Pound due to internal factors, represented in speculation and brokering the price of the pound in the market, in addition to external factors represented in economic sanctions and the attack on the lira and the siege on the country, while the Syrian economy is affected by the events experienced by the country, that led to bad impact on the cash reserve with banks,” Syrian officials clarified.

It is worthy mentioned that a legislative decree was recently passed. It requires the criminalization of dealing without the Syrian pound as a means of payment or any kind of commercial trading or cash payments, whether it is in foreign currencies or precious metals.

Sharif el -Khatib