Syrian president doubles public sector wages as national currency spirals downwards

abcnews.go.com:

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad has doubled public sector wages and pensions as the war-torn country’s national currency spiraled further downwards, reaching a new low for the year

BEIRUT — Syria’s president early Wednesday doubled public sector wages and pensions as the war-torn country’s national currency spiraled further downwards, reaching a new low for the year.

President Bashar Assad issued the two decrees just before midnight Tuesday as the Syrian pound’s value against the U.S. dollar declined to a new all-time low, down from 7,000 at the beginning of 2023 to 15,000 pounds to the greenback. At the start of the conflict in 2011, the dollar was trading at 47 pounds.

For over a year, Damascus has been restructuring its program of subsidies for gasoline, diesel for heating, and bread. At the launch of the restructure in February last year, Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous said the move to scale back fuel subsidies would allow the program to target the poorest families more effectively as well as reducing the Syrian state’s deficit.

Though wheat and bread subsidies have not been affected, the move has sparked rare protests in the country, as families struggle to cope with skyrocketing inflation. Syria hiked fuel prices Wednesday, soon after Assad’s decree, further rolling back state subsidies.

“The national economy is in a clear state of instability, most notably rapid rise of the currency exchange rate,” Arnous told Syria’s parliament in a speech late last month, warning that financing government spending through debt and borrowing from the central bank is not sustainable.

Syria’s last wage hike was in December 2021, where Assad raised civil service salaries by 30%.

The increase in wages might be an immediate