Syrians puzzled, how to protect their currency’s value

When the Syrian revolution started to drift toward armed struggle by the end of 2011, the Syrian Pound’s value started to fluctuate, and it became clear that the crisis would last for long. Therefore, people who keep large amount of money in form of Syrian pounds in governmental or private banks, started to think in ways to protect their savings from losing their values.

Exchanging Syrian Pounds into Dollars was not enough to make people feel secure because Dollar’s value itself fluctuates from time to time.

First thing Syrians thought in to protect their money was to invest in properties, according to the American Jewish businessman’s advice: “buy when there’s blood in the street”.

The last thing would have crossed Syrian’s mind that properties could be at risk, as it had been considered for long to be the most secure way to keep money’s value.

Suad, a syrian divorced woman followed that advice and bought a house in Damascus countryside near Duma, hoping to secure a house for future for her and her only daughter. However after two years, she does not know anything about it and she has become aware that the area has been under shelling.

Elham, 60 years old Syrian widow, used to spend for living from the interest she receive for the money she had in bank, however, when the crises started, she thought of exchanging money into US Dollar. But with the quick inflation and increase in prices, spending increased and Mrs Elham could not know what to do.

On the other hand, gold is considered a good choice to keep the value of money, and that what Naji, a 60 years old man who live in the Gulf for a long time did. He bought gold with the money left after financially securing his sons. However he kept feeling scared of breaking in or raids by security forces, as they might know the place he had hidden gold and take it away.

It seems that Saad’s choice was the wisest, as he bought a land near Hama, because he thought that it would not get damaged or destroyed or lose its value by war.

Syrians had been enjoying financial security for a long time, as all they needed to do was to put their money in Banks. However these day, they need to think deeply to make a good choice to protect their lifelong savings. With the inflation and increase prices, people started to use their savings just to provide essential needs.

This post first appeared in Eqtsad, Zaman Alwasl's Business website; Translation by Yusra Ahmed