For the first time, a woman is in charge of the financial sector after Syrian authorities named Maysa Sabreen as the country’s temporary central bank governor, a bank official told AFP on Tuesday.
According to a department manager at the Central Bank of Syria who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss sensitive topics, Sabreen, who was the bank’s first deputy governor until recently, started her new role on Tuesday.
“We received an internal circular yesterday assigning Dr Maysa Sabreen to run the Central Bank of Syria in a caretaker capacity,” he said.
He did not say when her interim mandate was due to end.
Since 2018, Sabreen, a specialist in Syrian banking, has served as the first deputy governor.
She has also held positions on the boards of directors of the national Accounting and Auditing Board, the Monetary and Credit Council, the Damascus Stock Exchange, the Real Estate Finance Supervision Authority, and the central bank’s management committee.
The previous head of the central bank, Mohammed Issam Hazime, was appointed in 2021 during the reign of Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown on December 8 by Islamist-led rebels.
Since the civil war began in 2011, Syria’s national currency has lost almost 90% of its value, falling from 50 pounds to 12,000–15,000 US dollars.
