Lebanon to shift to new official lira-to-dollar exchange rate
Lebanon is shifting to a new official exchange rate to the US dollar, three years after an unprecedented financial and economic crisis that has plunged a large portion of its population under the poverty line.
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.
