Syria’s new rulers appoint Maysaa Sabrine as first woman to lead central bank

Sabrine, a longtime central bank official mostly focused on oversight of the country’s banking sector, replaces Mohammed Issam Hazime who was appointed governor in 2021 by then-President Bashar al-Assad and remained on after Assad was ousted by a lightning rebel offensive on Dec. 8.

Since the rebel takeover, the bank has taken steps to liberalize an economy that was heavily controlled by the state, including by cancelling the need for pre-approvals for imports and exports and tight controls on the use of foreign currency.

But Syria and the bank itself remain under strict US sanctions.

The bank has also taken stock of the country’s assets after Assad’s fall and a brief spate of looting that saw Syrian currency stolen but the main vaults left unbreached, Reuters reported.

The vault holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it had at the start of its war in 2011, sources told Reuters, but foreign currency reserves had dwindled from around $18 billion before the war to around $200 million, they added.