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Monday, September 12, 2022
Amid economic crisis, Lebanon ends expensive fuel subsidy program
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Lebanon’s central bank lifted its remaining subsidies on fuel on Monday, gas station owners said, ending a year-long process of scaling back on the expensive program.
The Central Bank over a year ago announced it would gradually lift fuel subsidies, to slow down the draining of its foreign exchange reserves. Fuel subsidies once cost the cash-strapped country some $3 billion annually. Last week, it subsidized just 20% of the cost of fuel imports.
Lebanon is in the throes of a crippling economic crisis that has plunged three-quarters of its population into poverty and decimated the value of the Lebanese pound against the dollar by around 90 percent. The World Bank has described the collapse as one of the worst in the world in the last 150 years.
The Times of Israel Community.