Syria has very low foreign currency reserves, says caretaker PM Bashir

Dubai: Syrian caretaker Prime Minister Mohammad al-Bashir told Al Jazeera TV on Tuesday that Syria has very low foreign currency reserves.

Current and former Syrian officials have told Reuters that the dollar reserves have been nearly depleted because Bashar al-Assad's government increasingly used them to fund food, fuel and its war effort.

The central bank's foreign exchange reserves amount to just around $200 million in cash, one of the sources told Reuters, while another said the US dollar reserves were "in the hundreds of millions".