Lebanon should receive 860 million dollars within 2 months from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicates a press release from the Presidency of the Republic published following a meeting between the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun and an official of the institution in charge of the Lebanese file, Mahmoud Mohieldin.

This sum should be granted as special drawing rights to the tune of 650 billion dollars which will be distributed among 190 member countries of the international financial organization in order to revive the world economy victim of the COVID19 coronavirus pandemic.

This sum should be allocated to the Banque du Liban in order to strengthen its monetary reserves and try to improve somewhat the economic situation of a country victim of a crisis described as one of the worst since the mid-nineteenth century by the World Bank.

It will also be a question of determining what use would be made of this windfall when the Lebanese pound has lost 92% of its value against the dollar for 2 years and that the monetary reserves of the Bank of Lebanon have collapsed due to the use of available monetary reserves to finance the program for the purchase of basic necessities, a program estimated at 6 billion dollars per year, half of which is for fuels.

It will also be a question of putting in place a rescue plan for the Lebanese economy as soon as a new government is formed. This plan should also include legislative reforms to allow transparency of public affairs and “a fair and just distribution of losses”, alluding to the restructuring of losses in the banking sector estimated at more than 100 billion dollars. This plan, says the Baabda Palace, aims to restore the local economy.

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