Lockdown has pushed Lebanon's economy into free fall. Three in four Lebanese may need aid by the end of the year
Chadi Khoury, might have been good for his mental health. For six weeks a nationwide lockdown meant he could not fix a busted refrigerator in his Beirut snack shop. Now he can—but he has spent all morning arguing over prices. Repairmen want to be paid in dollars, which he lacks: gone are the days when customers might buy their falafel with greenbacks. “We’re in Lebanon, not America,” he yells into the phone. “Give me the price in Lebanese.
Little else is, though. Lebanon was in economic crisis before the pandemic, with an illiquid banking sector and a collapsing currency. On March 7th the government decided to default on its debts. The lockdown has pushed the economy into free fall. Thousands of businesses may never reopen. Stories of hardship circulate daily on social media: a pregnant woman and her husband salvaging food from a refuse skip; penniless migrant workers trying to cross the militarised border into Israel.
The middle class has become poor, and the poor destitute: three in four Lebanese may need aid by the end of the year. Despite the lockdown, thousands have taken to the streets in protest. Banks have been firebombed. In Tripoli, one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, a young man was shot dead by soldiers during a protest last month.support. It would drop the peg and devalue the pound to 3,500 to the dollar this year.
Perhaps most contentious will be how to clean up the balance-sheets of Lebanese banks, which have an estimated 100trn pounds in losses. The plan proposes a bail-in: shareholders would take a bath, and wealthy clients would see their deposits become long-dated, low-interest obligations. Bankers are predictably furious, arguing this would shatter confidence. But their anger is partly a way of ducking responsibility for their role in the crisis.
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