Two people holding bundles of Lebanese liras and US dollars. (Joseph Eid/AFP)
BEIRUT — The Lebanese lira continued its depreciation on the parallel market Tuesday morning, trading at LL36,000 against the dollar.
According to the Lirarate.org platform, the dollar was worth LL36,000 to buy and LL35,900 to sell, as of 9:42am. The gap between this rate and that of the Sayrafa platform (LL28,400, as of Monday), designed by the Banque du Liban to try to stabilize the exchange rate, continues to widen, now amounting to a difference of roughly LL8,000.
Banque du Liban lifted the final remaining portion of the gasoline subsidy on Monday after gradually reducing it over the past month. This means importers will now have to secure more dollars from the parallel market to pay for fuel, thus increasing demand on dollars and leading to further depreciation of the lira.
Earlier this year, Lebanon reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which advocated the introduction of a floating exchange rate.
The agreement also articulated additional reforms the Lebanese government must make in order to unlock a massive financial assistance package from the IMF.