The Syrian pound was devalued by the country’s Central Bank on Tuesday, extending the currency’s worst fall since the war began in 2011.
The Syrian currency has fallen sharply on the parallel market, according to online services used to track its value.
On Tuesday, the Syrian pound was trading at more than 11,000 to the US dollar on the parallel, or black, market.
On Tuesday, the Central Bank of Syria reduced the rate at which foreign currency can be issued to 9,900 Syrian pounds to the dollar.
It marks the biggest drop since the start of the year, when comparable prices rose nearly 6,500 and the number of transfers was 4,522.
The pound traded at 47 to the dollar before the counter-offensive President Bashar al-Assad it erupted in March 2011.
Since then, blood feud, now in its 12th year, has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s pre-war 23 million people. This, plus is Western sanctionsa money squeeze connected to the neighborhood Economic free fall in Lebanonand the government’s loss of its areas in the north-east where oil is produced, has caused economic problems.
The World Bank has projected a 3.2 percent decline in Syria’s economy in 2023, due to ongoing conflicts, rising grain and energy prices and shortages, and water shortages that reduce productivity.
And in February, parts of Syria and Turkey were heavily affected destructive earthquakesre-emphasizing the number of Syrians, millions of whom had already fled and are struggling with hunger.
As a result of the earthquakes, the World Bank in February revised its forecast down from 2.3 percent to 5.5 percent for the year.
In the aftermath of the disaster, Syria’s unprecedented economic crisis forced the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to reduce aid to 2.5 million of the 5.5 million people who depend on the agency for their basic food needs. Donations of aid and transport to the affected areas have been ongoing sympathy for political conflicts around the world.
The recession is fueled by the onset of deflation, a term that refers to the combination of inflation and economic instability, economist Nisrine Zreik told Reuters.
“This increase is due to the weakness of the Syrian economy in general and manufacturing activities in particular, including the increase in imports,” Zreik said.