The authors of a new report published by the World Bank estimate that the he economic and financial crisis in Lebanon is probably one of the ten, if not one of the three worst crises the world has known since the middle of the 19th century .
Thus, the GDP fell from $ 55 billion in 2018 to $ 33 billion in 2020.
Among the accused, the Lebanese authorities, both political for certain sectors but also the Banque du Liban, indicate the authors of the report:
In the Fall 2020 edition of the LEM, the economic crisis that Lebanon is going through was described as Deliberate Depression . For more than a year, Lebanese authorities have been beset by a series of successive crises – namely, the country’s greatest peacetime financial and economic crisis, COVID-19 and the explosion in the Port of Beirut – to which they have provided deliberately inadequate political responses. Inadequacies which unfortunately do not come from a lack of information or bad directives but from a combination (i) a lack of political consensus on effective policy initiatives; and (ii) a political consensus that defends a failed economic system – a system that has benefited some for a long time. Faced with these challenges, the country currently has an executive power that is not fully functional, awaiting the formation of its third government in just over a year, and is paralyzed by an institutional vacuum that has lasted for more than a year. 8 months.
World Bank Report.Indicateurs économiques du LibanSuivez les principaux indicateurs économiques en temps réel.
More than half of the population is currently living below the poverty line, with 41% of households even experiencing difficulties with basic needs such as food.
Among the causes of these difficulties, the rapid increase in the money supply having led to a deterioration in the parity of the Lebanese pound against the dollar, a contraction of the GDP and an effective deterioration of certain fiscal indicators despite an apparent improvement, a fall in imports due to the depletion of monetary reserves and a policy of deleveraging banks to the detriment of depositors.
They thus dissected the mechanisms put in place and the famous financial engineering of the Banque du Liban, which also transfers a large part of their financial losses to depositors.
