Ashtar Mahmood
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Security Treatment for the Situation of the Syrian Pound and the US Dollar!
The Central Bank of Syria issued a statement on February 14 about the situation in the exchange market. The statement and the procedures that have been taken were mostly about “security”, as the collaboration between the Anti-Money-Laundering/ Combating the Financing of Terrorism and stakeholders was discussed to conquer a group of companies and agencies that work in speculation on the Syrian Pound and confiscating large amounts of money in the Syrian Pound and the US dollar. The statement also discussed other non-specific intervention tools.
This statement is almost the only statement of the Central Bank about the exchange rates since more than 6 months. Silence prevailed while the prices of the dollar were gradually increasing, which reflected the decline in the value of the Syrian Pound and the increase in the general level of prices in Syria.
Taking security procedures to face the problem of price increase treats a small and specific part in a huge and intricate phenomenon of the size of economic deterioration! As speculators and speculation are an objective result of the demand for the dollar, and the demand for the dollar is a result of the decline in the demand for the Syrian Pound. Yet, the decline in the demand for the local currency is a result of the decline in investment, consumption and the overall Syrian GDP, which leads to the Syrian Pound losing its value.
Of course, there is an aspect in this treatment that is supposed to be about security, but if it were not linked or right after working on aspects that constitute the essence of the problem, it would be useless. What is needed is treating economic deterioration through pumping production financing in the Syrian Pound that creates more employment, goods and services in local economy, i.e., creates local wealth again that is valued and produced in the Syrian Pound! Unfortunately, this cannot be handled with the current facts, but it needs a politically healthy environment that allows those who have resources in the Syrian Pound to invest them in production inside the country, allows the living forces to hold on to and stay in Syria, gets the country out of the cycle of danger, and creates a political beacon of hope. Without doing this, security treatment of the issue of the (prices and the dollar) will be just a pointless movement at most.
