In late December, Maysaa Sabreen was appointed caretaker governor of the Central Bank of Syria. Sabreen stepped up from deputy governor after the rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) toppled President Bashar al-Assad, making her the first woman to hold the position.
In a country wracked by 14 years of war, she faces a long list of challenges.
“For now, the situation is chaotic in terms of economic measures,” says Jihad Yaziji, editor in chief of the Syria Report. The top regulator’s urgent to-do list includes stabilizing the exchange rate on the Syrian pound and cushioning one of the highest inflation rates in the world.
“The first objective for the central bank will be to regain the trust in the local currency,” says Ali Awdeh, head of research at the Union of Arab Banks. The pound has lost over 90% of its value since the start of the civil war in 2011 and 95% of Syrians live below the poverty line.
Under the Assad regime, the government dictated monetary policy, but Sabreen wants her institution to regain independence. Since assuming office, she has taken steps to facilitate foreign trade, but Syria and the central bank remain under international sanctions. While some countries have started lifting restrictions on oil and gas exports, Western banks are still forbidden to transact with Syria.
“I doubt the Trump administration will suspend these sanctions without important political concessions from the new authorities,” Yaziji says.
HTS, the de facto rulers in Damascus, who were previously affiliated with Al-Qaeda but broke with the Islamist group in 2016, have asked repeatedly for sanctions targeting the Assad regime to be lifted. If and when that occurs, the central bank could potentially retrieve hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of frozen assets from abroad.
Sabreen will also supervise Syrian banks, which have been disconnected from the global financial system for over a decade.
“Public institutions, which dominate the banking sector, need to be restructured and follow appropriate banking practices,” Ali Awdeh argues. “In parallel, the private sector should be allowed to play a bigger role in the economy.”
