Syria’s central bank vault holds nearly 26 tonnes of gold, the same amount it held at the start of its bloody civil war in 2011, even after the chaotic fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, four people familiar with the situation told Reuters.
The same sources also said the country has only a small amount of foreign exchange reserves in cash.
Syria’s gold reserves stood at 25.8 tonnes in June 2011, according to the World Gold Council, which cites the Central Bank of Syria as its source. That is worth $2.2 billion at current market prices, according to Reuters calculations.
But the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves are only about $200 million in cash, one of the sources told Reuters, while another said the US dollar reserves are “in the hundreds of millions”.
While not all of the reserves would be held in cash, the drop is significant compared to before the war. At the end of 2011, Syria’s central bank reported $14 billion in foreign exchange reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund.
In 2010, the IMF estimated Syria’s foreign exchange reserves at $18.5 billion.
