Syria is in the final stages of establishing a correspondent bank account with neighbouring Turkey’s central bank and \u200bwill also discuss a potential currency swap aimed at boosting \u200ctrade, the Syrian central bank Chief said.<\/p>\n
Turkey has been the main backer of the Syrian government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa since the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in \u200blate 2024. Al-Sharaa has been seeking to rebuild state institutions \u200band the economy after more than a decade of war, \u2060sanctions and financial isolation.<\/p>\n
Trade between the two countries has surged but \u200bbusinesses say the lack of a cross-border payments system was one of \u200bthe biggest impediments to further growth and investment. A correspondent bank account would help to facilitate cross-border payments and trade finance transactions which traders say are currently \u200bcash only and handled by traditional money transfer offices.<\/p>\n
In written responses \u200bto Reuters questions, Syria’s central bank Governor AbdulKader AlHussrieh said he expected Syrian-Turkish co\/operation \u200cto \u2060expand “into integrated payment systems, cross-border settlements, and more structured trade finance frameworks”.<\/p>\n
“Co-operation with Turkey, particularly between the Central Bank of Syria and Turkish authorities, is accelerating and becoming increasingly institutionalized,” said AlHussrieh, who was on \u200ba two-day working \u200bvisit to \u2060Turkey this week.<\/p>\n
Turkish state lender Ziraat Bank and smaller private Aktif Bank were also expected to begin Syrian \u200boperations “in the near term”, he said.<\/p>\n
Turkey’s exports to Syria \u200bjumped following \u2060Assad’s ouster by 60% to $3.5 billion last year, official data show, while Syria’s imports were at $235 million. The countries aim to almost triple trade \u2060volume \u200bto $10 billion over the medium term.<\/p>\n
“This ambition \u200bwill require a fully functioning financial system in Syria, supported by strong correspondent banking relationships,” \u200bAlHussrieh said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31281,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-31278","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Trade between the two countries has surged but \u200bbusinesses say the lack of a cross-border payments system was one of \u200bthe biggest impediments to further growth and investment.","published_date":"","news_description":"Trade between the two countries has surged but \u200bbusinesses say the lack of a cross-border payments system was one of \u200bthe biggest impediments to further growth and investment.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31279,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31278\/revisions\/31279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}