Historical Sketch

In the early 16th, the Ottomans conquered the Levant region from the Mamluk Empire and subsequently created the two provinces of Aleppo and Damascus. During World War I, Great Britain and France occupied the territory and kept it after the Turkish defeat. The French rule was briefly contested by the Hashemite ruler Faisal who proclaimed a short-lived kingdom in Damascus. France quickly regained sovereignty in 1920 and subdivided the area into five constituent states within the Syrian Union. The State of (Greater) Lebanon was carved out in 1924 while the four others, Aleppo, Damascus, Jebel Druz (Suwaida), Latakia (Alawite) were merged into the State of Syria in which the latter two maintained a degree of autonomy until the 1930s. During the German occupation of France both Syria and Lebanon proclaimed their independence. France recognized independent Syria in 1943 and withdrew its troops until end 1946. In 1958, Syria and Egypt created the United Arab Republic which broke apart already in 1961. Between 2011 and 2021 a civil war waged between the government and different insurgent groups.

Monetary History Overview

The French took over the Ottoman Bank and reconstituted it as Bank of Syria in January 1919 which began issuing paper money in September of the same year. It became legal tender in May 1920 when the Syrian-Lebanese Pound was created as currency for the French possessions. In 1924, the government and the then renamed "Bank of Syria and Greater Lebanon" concluded an agreement on a 15 years' concession to act as central bank for the French Levant. Upon expiry the concession, Lebanon and Syria concluded two separate concessions, both for another 25 years' term. The common currency area was thereby dissolved although both Lebanon and Syria had the same issuer, the "Bank of Syria and Lebanon". The Syrian concession could not be orderly legislated and had to be put in force by the French High Commander. The Syrian Pound was now a distinct currency for Syria only, the Syrian banknotes and coins remained legal tender in Lebanon until February 1948, and vice versa. The peg to the French Franc remained unchanged until the German occupation of France in 1940 when the Syrian currency repegged to the Pound Sterling. In January 1948, Syria devalued the currency by almost 40% and severed the monetary link to France, officialized one year lated in a bilateral agreement. After that the Bank of Syria and Lebanon was de facto suspended and the Currency Institute took over paper money issuance until the newly founded Central Bank of Syria began operations in August 1956. By then also the monetary convention with the Bank of Syria and Lebanon had been formally terminated. The Syrian Pound remained more or less stable for the next forty years after the 1948 devaluation, however, the exchange rate got split into a multi-tier structure. In January 1988, the exchange rate got unified and floated, and the Pound dived by more than 80% within a few months. Another 50% devaluation was done in 1995, then the currency remained more or less stable in the following years until the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. More than 90% of the value got destroyed during the 2010s. In mid-2019, the Pound's black market value strongly declined against the official rate, reaching intermittently 30%. Since the 50% devaluation of the official rate in April 2021 the gap has closed considerably.

Syria joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 10.04.1947.

Currency Units Timeline

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Monetary History Sources