In Washington, Bsat says Lebanon is entering a new phase of growth

BEIRUT — Economy Minister Amer Bsat said Thursday that Lebanon is entering a new phase of growth after years of unprecedented crisis, while also calling for further reforms.

Lebanon is targeting 5 percent growth this year, the strongest since 2011, Bsat said during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Washington.

While in April 2025 the World Bank estimated that Lebanon’s economy would grow by 4.7 percent this year, after contracting by 7.1 percent in 2024, it now expects, in its latest regional poverty report, 3.5 percent growth in 2025 and 4 percent for 2026.

“We are happy to finally see, after years and years of stagnation, some growth, but this is not the kind of sustainable growth we are seeking,” Bsat told the American think tank Atlantic Council, on the sidelines of the annual meetings.

Lebanon is a “country where the sovereignty of the state” is “being called into question,” the economy minister said, arguing that a stronger state should bolster business confidence.

He particularly called for a series of reforms, especially a reorientation of public spending toward services and infrastructure, as well as a reform of the public sector, where even senior officials are “scandalously underpaid.”

Lebanon is in talks with the IMF, which last month praised the country’s fiscal and monetary decisions but called for “a more ambitious approach” to budgetary pressure, expressing concern over the removal of fuel taxes.

“No one is going to impose conditions on us,” Amar Bsat countered, insisting that Lebanon is not implementing reforms to satisfy the IMF.

Even before the cross-border fire exchanges triggered in October 2023 between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, Lebanon and its six million residents were mired in an unprecedented economic collapse since 2019.

Between 2018 and 2021, GDP contracted by 28 percent, and the Lebanese Lira lost 98 percent of its value, leading to soaring inflation and a loss of purchasing power for the population, according to figures from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).