Lebanon will seek financial help from the International Monetary Fund, Prime Minister Hassan Diab said Thursday, as the government adopted a long-awaited economic rescue plan after a new wave of street protests.
A lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic has added to the heavily indebted country's economic woes, which include soaring inflation, a liquidity crunch, a plummeting currency and the country's first ever sovereign debt default.
Demonstrators in northern Lebanon have attacked banks and clashed with security forces for three consecutive nights, re-energising a protest movement launched in October against a political class deemed inept and corrupt.
"We will go to the IMF to request a programme," Diab said in a live TV address on Thursday, shortly after the government approved an economic rescue plan.
Diab said Lebanon will seek more than $10 billion dollars in financial support, without specifying how much would come from the IMF. That comes on top of $11 billion in grants and loans already pledged by international donors in 2018.
The aim, Diab said, would be to reduce Lebanon's enormous public debt burden from 170 percent of GDP to less than 100 percent. He added that the country's economic reform plan, unanimously approved on Thursday during a cabinet meeting, should see positive economic growth restored from 2022.
Comments
Comments are closed.