Syria plans to print the new-design currency in the United Arab Emirates and Germany instead of Russia, which has been printing the Syrian pound for more than a decade after sanctions forced Damascus to end its contract with a European company.
Reuters reports this, citing sources.
Such changes demonstrate the rapid improvement in Syriaʼs relations with the Gulf Arab countries and Western powers as a result of the easing of sanctions by the United States and the European Union.
The new currency design means that one of the purple denominations will no longer feature the face of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For now, those denominations will remain in circulation.
After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, the new Syrian government continued to maintain contacts with Moscow and even received a new batch of its currency printed in Russia, along with fuel and wheat. Russia has goals in Syria — it wants to keep two military bases there.
This worried European officials. Therefore, in February 2025, the EU suspended sanctions against Syriaʼs financial sector, including allowing the printing of currency.
The Syrian government is currently negotiating a currency printing deal with the UAE-based company Oumolat. The German state-owned Bundesdruckerei and the private Giesecke+Devrient are also interested in printing.
Syria is facing a shortage of its own banknotes, worsening the economic situation of the country, which is struggling to recover from 13 years of war.
What preceded
On December 8, 2024, the Syrian opposition entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, and overthrew the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who had been in power for 24 years. Assad himself fled to Moscow.
Syrian rebels formed a transitional government, led by Muhammad Bashir, who led the "Salvation Government" — a political structure created in 2017 in territories controlled by the Syrian opposition, primarily in the province of Idlib.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, Ahmed al-Sharaa, became the new president of Syria in January 2025.
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