The Syrian pound continues to plummet, rocked by nearly four years of continual war. On Monday, it traded at 230 SYP against the US dollar on the black market and 190 SYP at Syria’s Central Bank, the lowest rate since Syria’s independence.
With this latest decline, the pound has lost almost 500% of its value since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, at a time when the pound was trading at 47 SYP against the US dollar.
Syria’s Central Bank is attempting to reduce the gap between the exchange rate of the Syrian pound in the black market and the official currency price by pumping US dollars into the exchange market, with the latest intervention amounting to 65 million USD.
The pound’s decline was compounded by the lack of confidence in the Syrian economy, a decline in reserves of foreign currency, the depletion of the country’s natural resources, cessation of production, imports and exports, the Assad regime’s manipulation of the country's economy, and an inflation rate as high as 250%.
