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Syria

Syria weakens official exchange rate to US dollar by 7%

Syria’s central bank has weakened its official exchange rate to 3,015 Syrian pounds to the dollar, a central bank statement said on Monday, while black market rates used for most economic activity sat around 4,440. The official rate was previously set at 2,814. Monday’s softening of the official rate represents a loss in value of […]

Crushed by war, Syrian tourism eyes expat uptick

Somar Hazim had high hopes when he opened a hotel in Damascus in 2009, adding to a growing number of boutique guest houses in the Old City that were proving to be a hit with tourists, before war broke out and forced him to close down. Although security returned to Damascus years ago, big-spending foreign […]

Person, Human, Clothing

UN aid to Syria from Turkey to be allowed until January

The UN Security Council appears set to allow UN deliveries of aid to some four million people in northwest Syria from Turkey until January, diplomats said on Monday, after days of wrangling with Russia over how long to let the huge operation continue. The mandate for the operation, which has been delivering food, medicine and […]

A worker displays grains of wheat at a mill in Lebanon, where the cost of a loaf of bread rose 70 percent in March

Ukraine war drives Gulf to double down on food security

As the war in Ukraine has pushed up food prices and disrupted supply chains, hard-hit MENA countries explore ways to protect themselves In Abu Dhabi clusters of fresh tomatoes are growing inside rows of climate-controlled greenhouses in the middle of the desert – just one example of the lengths the arid region must go to […]

  • Analysis

In Syria, business hub hopes to drive recovery from war

In an industrial zone in northern Syria’s rebel-held city of Al-Bab, Abu Omar al-Shihabi’s smelter churns out iron bars he says can compete with any produced in Syria and beyond. The industrial zone is an unlikely business hub. It is located on the edge of a city which was once occupied by Islamic State and […]

In north Syria, business hub hopes to drive recovery

In an industrial zone in northern Syria’s rebel-held city of Al-Bab, Abu Omaral-Shihabi’s smelter churns out iron bars he says can compete with any produced in Syria and beyond. The industrial zone is an unlikely business hub. It is located on the edge of a city which was once occupied by Islamic State and now […]