Dollar peg to be kept
in the foreseeable future

Governor of the Central Bank

to keep his post

The official exchange rate of the lira would be maintained for the foreseeable future, said Ghazi Wazni, the Minister of Finance.

“Currently, we will keep the currency peg in order not to cause a further increase in inflation. We will consider a flexible policy later on,” he said.

Wazni said that it is very difficult to determine the timeframe for when the peg would be lifted. “This depends on the ability to improve public finances, debt, the situation of the banking sector and the capital inflows that will come,” he said.

He said the government took a step last week in the direction of reforming the electricity sector, a major drain on State coffers, by approving the construction of facilities that will switch power generation to natural gas from more expensive fuel oil. The costs of servicing the debt in lira had also been reduced by 25 percent.

Wazni said Lebanon was in need of $25 to $30 billion of assistance over the next five years to get out of the crisis.

He said that the Governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh, would remain in his post. “He is staying,” Wazni said.