ALBAWABA - In order to get the economy back on track after fourteen years of civil war and the historic fall of the Syrian pound, the government is planning to print new money and take away two zeros from the national currency. Along with the move, new banknotes will be issued without the images of President Bashar al-Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad.
The Central Bank of Syria stated that new banknotes will be released and the currency will be redenominated in order to lower inflation and restore trust in the currency.
News agency Reuters says that the Syrian government has agreed to have the new currency printed by Goznak, a Russian state-owned business. After high-level talks in Moscow at the end of July 2025, the deal was officially signed.
The choice to take away two zeros from the currency was kept secret so as not to affect the market. Mukhlis al-Nazer, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, led the process, which was mostly about getting the banking system ready for the change.
Banks were sent letters asking for system updates, reports on the infrastructure, and testing processes to make sure they were ready. Banknotes from both the old and new systems will be used together for a year. The full switch should be finished by December 8, 2026.
Economists think that the choice has effects on both politics and the economy. It is seen as part of a larger political move to get rid of banknotes with pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Hafez al-Assad. Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist and UN expert, said that changing the banknotes is politically necessary but warned that it might be hard to do so, especially for consumers and the elderly, because the country is in such bad shape right now.
The Syrian government thinks this is an important step for recovering public trust and the economy, but experts warn that the new banknotes will not fix the country's deep-seated economic problems without other changes as well.
