Syrian banking: Opening up?

Since Bashar al-Assad was elected as president of Syria to succeed his father, Hafez al-Assad, with a surprisingly low 97.29% of the vote - his father pulled in over 99% of the vote when he was re-elected - there have been mutterings that Syria might be looking to open up and reform the country's Wnancial sector. The international banking community, however, seems less than excited and in some cases extremely sceptical.

Syria has one of the most undeveloped banking systems in the Middle East and one that is in desperate need of reform. In his inaugural speech, Bashar called for the removal of obstacles standing in the way of internal and external investment Xows and the “activation of the private sector, granting it better opportunities to work”. Syrian offcials seem to agree and have targeted growth of Wnancial institutions. Prime minister Mohammed Mustafa Miro recently declared: “The development of the banking sector is an urgent matter.

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