Crisis-hit Lebanon announces hike in fixed exchange rate against dollar

By AP 28 September 2022, 7:30 pm

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Lebanese security forces are deployed as people gather outside the Blom Bank branch in the capital Beirut's Tariq al-Jdideh neighborhood on September 16, 2022, to express their support to a depositor, who stormed the bank demanding to withdraw his frozen savings. (Ibrahim AMRO/AFP)

The Lebanese Finance Ministry says the crisis-hit country will hike its fixed exchange rate against the dollar to 15,000 Lebanese pounds starting in November, calling it a “necessary corrective action.”

Beginning in late 2019 the country has been spiraling into what the World Bank says is one of the worst economic crises in over a century. Since then, three-quarters of the population has plunged into poverty, and the Lebanese pound has lost around 90% of its value against the dollar.

The Finance Ministry says in a statement that the Central Bank has approved the new exchange rate change, and the decision was a “step to gradually unify exchange rates” in the cash-strapped country.