Talks in Bangkok
Syria's Minister of Finance met World Bank officials in Bangkok on 12 October 2026, on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, to review how existing grants are being used and to discuss expanding them toward development and reconstruction.
The session brought the minister together with the World Bank's vice president for development finance and the director of resource mobilization at the International Development Association, with a delegate from the foreign ministry also attending.
Grants on the Table
The discussions centered on $493 million in grants extended through the International Development Association, covering electricity, health, water, the financial sector, public finance, and education.
Both sides examined ways to widen that support, a step that would channel further concessional financing into sectors central to the country's recovery and its public services. The existing package spans six areas of spending, from power and water to public finance and schooling.
Settling Fund Obligations
Earlier the same day, the minister met the head of the Arab Monetary Fund to discuss settling Syria's outstanding financial obligations to the Fund and strengthening the technical support it provides to government institutions.
The two sides weighed resuming the Arab Trade Financing Program, opening credit lines for the finance ministry and the central bank to fund government imports, and speeding integration with the Arab Payments Platform, mechanisms that bear directly on how the state finances purchases abroad.
Reopening Capital Markets
A separate meeting with a banking delegation addressed developing capital markets, building a market for bonds and debt instruments, and advancing broader financial reform.
Taken together, the engagements mark a push to reconnect the country's public finances with multilateral and cross-border channels that had been dormant for years, with the near-term focus on grants, trade finance, and import credit rather than on headline commitments.