The Lebanese Central Bank’s foreign currency reserves have reached dangerously low levels, an official has indicated.
Speaking to Al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday, an official financial source warned that “there won’t be a ceiling for the collapse” if the current situation in Lebanon remains unchanged.
“There will also be no ceiling to the rise of the dollar, which may reach, I would not say astronomical figures, but rather imaginary figures,” the unnamed official said, pointing out to the alarming rise recorded on the black market this week.
Despite everything, the source noted, “we have not reached the bottom yet.”
The main condition for Lebanon not to reach the bottom is the formation of a government, the official said, explaining that with each day that passes without a government in Lebanon, “the possibilities of treatment get weaker, more difficult, and more complicated.”
With that said, the official criticized the performance of the caretaker government, calling it “a group of losers that has completely abandoned its responsibilities.”
The official went on to accuse the government of being “only concerned with asking for money from the Banque du Liban, without realizing the critical situation that its obligatory and strategic reserve has reached.”
The foreign currency reserve currently available at the central bank is “in the circle of grave danger,” the official stressed.
“Its dissolution, currently taking place in the ongoing subsidy process,” the source added, “will not separate us from the final fall to the bottom by months, as it is said, but only by a very few weeks, no more.”
In related news, a recent report indicated that the central bank will soon issue a new decision that introduces new measures with respect to fresh money bank accounts.
