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3. Syria’s Empty Treasury Shifts Focus to Frozen Assets Abroad

A few days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Syrian pound made a dramatic recovery against the US dollar in local markets, trading between 13,000 and 15,000 pounds per dollar. This rebound followed months of sharp devaluation, with the exchange rate previously collapsing to nearly 60,000 pounds per dollar on the black market.

Since 2011, when peaceful protests were violently crushed by the regime and spiraled into a protracted war, Syrians have endured harsh living conditions, soaring inflation, a collapsing currency and severe food shortages.

Early on Sunday, opposition factions entered Damascus, seizing control of the capital as regime forces withdrew from public institutions and streets. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Assad had ran away.

Following the fall of the regime, operations at Syria’s Central Bank were briefly suspended but resumed mid-week, with branches reopening across the country. The bank remains under the management of Governor Mohammad Issam Hazimeh, who has held the position since 2021, and his deputy, Mayssa Sabreen.

Sources revealed to Reuters that thieves were unable to access the main vaults of Syria’s Central Bank during the brief unrest in Damascus after Assad’s regime was toppled. Bassel al-Hamawi, president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, confirmed that while some money was stolen from the bank’s premises, the main vaults were untouched. The central bank has not disclosed its foreign currency reserves for over a decade, and the current amount of reserves under its control remains unclear.

A significant revelation came from Syria’s new transitional Prime Minister, Mohammad al-Bashir, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, where he stated that the state’s vaults hold only Syrian pounds. He confirmed that Syria is facing a severe shortage of foreign currency and that the government is still collecting data on loans and bonds, describing the country’s financial situation as extremely bad.

Attention is now focused on the sanctions imposed on Syria, which is subject to both US and European ones, as well as the classification of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a terrorist organization. Despite the group’s efforts to mitigate concerns about its past, it remains on the terrorism lists of the United States, the European Union, Turkey and other nations.

In this context, the Swiss Ministry of Economy disclosed that Syrian assets worth $112 million, deposited in Swiss banks and frozen due to sanctions, remain blocked. The Ministry confirmed that none of these funds belong to the ousted president Assad. These assets were frozen as part of sanctions imposed by Switzerland in 2011, in alignment with the EU, targeting Assad and his associates for widespread human rights violations. Currently, the Swiss sanctions list includes 318 individuals and 87 entities linked to Syria and Assad.

Assad’s regime has left Syria facing severe economic challenges, with the near-total collapse of its economic infrastructure due to policies implemented over many years, particularly after the onset of the civil war in 2011. Rebuilding Syria will be a monumental task, following 13 years of civil war that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and left entire cities in ruins. Meanwhile, millions of refugees continue to live in camps, enduring one of the largest displacement crises in modern history.

Data from the World Bank, the UN and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reveal that Syria’s GDP has contracted by over 85% from 2011 to 2023, dropping to just $9 billion. The Syrian economy is also projected to experience further contraction in 2024.