Lebanese people live in anxiety over their living and economic conditions and how they will be able to withstand the manipulation of the dollar, which has consumed their savings and hard work, and continues to besiege them in their daily sustenance and the simplest necessities of life. What measures should the Central Bank of Lebanon take amidst all this misery?
Financial and economic expert Antoine Farah indicated in an interview with the "Anbaa" electronic newspaper that the Central Bank of Lebanon cannot perform miracles regarding the dollar and the lira. If there were easy ways to stop the continuous collapse of the lira, the central bank would have taken these steps long ago. He added, "All the measures we can expect, which are necessarily linked to the process of injecting additional dollars into the market, mean that the Central Bank will have to spend from its remaining reserves, which we know are the depositors' money and the hidden dollars that we need to implement a rescue plan when the time comes."
Farah continued, "These measures, no matter their nature, will be modest," and in his opinion, the exchange rate of the dollar in the black market has exhausted its limits for this period in terms of trading volume. Thus, the actions on the dollar will provide temporary relief before it continues to rise again, and the trading will remain between 55,000 to 60,000, but he does not know how long this will last. However, he emphasized that it will not stop rising definitively before achieving recovery and reaching a rescue plan that changes this scenario in Lebanon.
Farah stated: "The issue of people's money deposited in banks to benefit from dollars through the Sayrafa platform remains. In this regard, the Central Bank must find a solution for the trapped funds that have caused severe losses to citizens. The Central Bank must quickly find a solution to this dilemma," indicating the possibility of raising the Sayrafa platform to 45,000, but it must first settle the dollars for people who registered their names and paid money at the price of 38,000 to prevent them from losing their funds before raising the Sayrafa platform.
Once again, the Lebanese find themselves hostages to the black market on one side and to the actions of the central bank on the other. They live in hope that the authorities of this country will regain their senses and work to resolve the political obstacles that besiege them and prevent recovery and revival.
