Two women exchanging a one US dollar bill against a fifty thousand lebanese pound (lira) banknote, in the lebanese capital beirut, on January 19, 2023. (Credit: Joseph EID / AFP)
BEIRUT — The Lebanese lira on Thursday continued its tumble on the parallel market, reaching a record low of around LL50,000 to the US dollar, according to several mobile tracking applications.
Meanwhile, authorities have still not adopted reforms to curb the economic and financial collapse that has paralyzed the country for more than three years.
After reaching the LL50,000 threshold around 11 a.m., the dollar then began trading at LL50,300 (when buying) and LL 50,100 (when selling) shortly after 1:30 p.m., according to the platform Lirarate.org.
The gap between this rate and that of the Sayrafa platform (LL38,000 on Tuesday night), designed by Banque du Liban (BDL) to try to stabilize the exchange rate, continues to widen, now amounting to LL12,000.
In response to this record low, fuel prices spiked across the board, according to the tariffs published by the Ministry of Energy.
The depreciation of the national currency, which has lost more than 96 percent of its value in three years, has plunged more than three-quarters of people in Lebanon below the poverty line. It comes despite a preliminary loan agreement between Beirut and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which called for the introduction of a floating exchange rate. The agreement also included additional reforms that the Lebanese government had to undertake in order to unlock the IMF financial assistance package.
