The Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s central bank, will begin to inject US dollars into the local market, the Syndicate of Money Changers just announced.
The heated escalations that took place on Thursday night prompted the Lebanese Cabinet to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to address Lebanon’s rapidly deteriorating financial situation.
Following the session, Minister of Industry Imad Hoballah stated that “the Banque du Liban has started pumping dollars, and the situation is positive.”
Later on, the Vice President of the Syndicate of Money Changers in Lebanon, Mahmoud Halawi, announced the terms reached during the meeting at the Grand Serail.
Halawi said, “An agreement was reached today that the governor of the central bank would pump cash dollars in what suffices for the importers’ needs and for the citizens’ needs.”
He also asserted that the government is determined to support the dollar materially this time around, “and not only in words, as was previously the case.”
This was after he revealed the government’s plan to “support the security forces to suppress the black market.”
“We confirm that we will rationalize the sale of the dollar so that the central bank’s stock does not go [to waste] and we will commit to selling the dollar at 3,940, i.e. the price set by the Syndicate of Money Changers,” Halawi declared.
On a side note, the money changers’ delegation to the Serail urged Lebanese citizens to do business with the licensed currency exchange institutions and to stay away from the black market to avoid causing US dollars to be taken outside of Lebanon.
Notably, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri later announced from the Baabda Palace that the value of the US dollar will be lowered against the Lebanese pound, starting, June 12th, until the latter reaches 3,200.
The procedures for this, he said, “were agreed upon during the Cabinet meeting in the Serail.”
