Syria will exhaust its foreign currency reserves in three to five months, sparking crisis in an economy reeling from sanctions over its crackdown on protests, a Western diplomat said Wednesday.
"Foreign reserves are down, probably hemorrhaging up to $3 billion a month," the diplomat told reporters in London.
"We think the reserves will probably be exhausted in three to five months," he said, adding that this was his government's "best estimate" at a time of scant reliable data on the Syrian economy.
"There will be a point at which their currency will collapse," he said.
The Syrian pound has plunged to a series of record lows in black market trading since anti-regime protest broke down last month, and been hit by mounting economic woes.
The embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad is also being squeezed by European Union oil and arms embargoes and the EU is currently planning a fresh set of penalties.
The United States and Canada have also imposed sanctions, while Arab nations have banned transactions with the Syrian government and central bank and frozen Syrian government assets in Arab countries.
