Lebanon Devalues Its Currency By 90%

The Lebanese pound has crashed since a financial meltdown in 2019 [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]  

Reuters: Lebanon to devalue currency by 90% on Feb. 1, central bank chief says 

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon will adopt a new official exchange rate of 15,000 pounds per U.S. dollar on Feb. 1, central bank governor Riad Salameh said, marking a 90% devaluation from its current official rate that has remained unchanged for 25 years. 

The shift from the old rate of 1,507 to 15,000 is still far off the parallel market, where the pound was changing hands at around 57,000 per dollar on Tuesday. 

The change will apply to banks, Salameh said, leading to a decrease in the equity of the institutions at the centre of the country's 2019 financial implosion. 

Analysts expect the shift to have less impact on the wider economy, which is increasingly dollarized and where most trades take place according to the parallel market rate. 

The pound has lost some 97% of its value since it began to split from the 1,507 rate in 2019.  

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Update #1: Lebanon devalues official exchange rate by 90 percent (Al Jazeera)  

Update #2: Lebanon to devalue currency by 90 pct: central bank (AAP)  

WNU Editor: The Lebanese are not along with a collapsing currency .... Argentine banks short of storage capacity to pile the rapidly depreciating Pesos (Merco Press0.

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