Izzat Traboulsi

Dr. Izzat Traboulsi LL.M Ph.D.Econ (born. Damascus, Syria; November 20, 1913 – December 6, 2000;) (Arabic: الدكتور عزة الطرابلسي‎; alternate spelling: Ezzat Traboulsi, عزت الطرابلسي), was a Syrian politician, economist, banker, and writer. He was the first governor of the Central Bank of Syria from 1956 to 1961 and served as Minister of Economy and Trade under the government of Head-of-State Nazim al-Qudsi and Syrian Prime Minister Khalid Al-Azm in 1962. His ideas and actions had an important influence on the Syrian financial institutions.

Education

Dr. Izzat Traboulsi earned his Baccalauréat diploma at the age of 16, and traveled to Lebanon to pursue a medical degree. He began his university career at the Saint Joseph University in Beirut, studying medicine. His interest in Law, however, overcame him and, after completing two months at Saint Joseph, returned to Damascus to study Law at the University of Damascus. After practicing law for a short period, in around 1939, he participated in and won a government-funded competition which enabled him to travel to Paris with a scholarship to study at the Sorbonne University, where he obtained a PhD in Economics. As the Second World War began, he stayed in Paris until 1945 completing his PhD and studying Political Science; he was shortly imprisoned during the war, possibly for his affiliation with co-founding the Arab Student Association in Paris along with Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, Omar Hakim, and Hafez Ibrahim of Tunisia. Upon completing his studies, he returned to Syria to teach at the University of Damascus, and assumed a judicial post in Damascus.