Lebanon to shift to new official lira-to-dollar exchange rate

Lebanon to shift to new official lira-to-dollar exchange rate

BEIRUT — Caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil announced Sept. 28 that the official exchange rate will shift from 1,507 Lebanese liras to 15,000 liras to the dollar, beginning Nov. 1, in a step toward a general unification of the multiple exchange rates that currently coexist.

The official exchange rate of the Lebanese lira has been pegged at 1,507.5 liras to the dollar since 1997. Since the start of the crisis in 2019, the national currency has lost more than 90% of its value, with the parallel market rate hovering around 38,000 liras (as of Sept. 29).

Khalil did not go into further details, which raised many questions among the population about the challenges and implications of such a decision.

When contacted by Al-Monitor, the Finance Ministry’s media office responded that all necessary comments on the decision are mentioned in the press release issued a few hours after Khalil’s announcement.  

According to the ministry’s statement, the shift to the new exchange rate will take place in two steps: first in terms of the customs dollar and the second at the level of the official rate, which will be adopted in coordination with Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s Central Bank.

“The matter is conditional on the approval of the recovery plan