 IFI, in collaboration with The World Bank, launched the Fall 2022 Lebanon Economic Monitor (LEM) titled “Time for an Equitable Banking Resolution.” The launch took place on November 23, staring with a brief presentation of the report by Senior Economist Dima Krayem, with remarks by IFI Director Joseph Bahout, and The World Bank’s Mashreq Country Director, Jean-Christophe Carret and Practice Manager- Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Eric Le Borgne. The report was discussed by a panel including Sami Geadah, IFI Associate Fellow, Alia Moubayed, Emerging Markets Economist, and Michel Accad, Executive General Manager of BankMed. The LEM provides an update of recent economic developments and examines the outlook and risks within a prolonged context of uncertainty in Lebanon. In its latest issue, it emphasized the need for a more equitable distribution of financial losses to help put Lebanon on a recovery path. The LEM estimated real GDP to contract by 5.4% in 2022, provided continued political paralysis and no implementation of a recovery strategy. Moreover, with financial losses exceeding US$72 billion, it asserted that “a financial sector bailout is unviable as there are simply no sufficient public funds: public assets are worth only a fraction of the estimated financial losses and potential revenues from oil and gas are still uncertain and years away.”
The World Bank full report is available here and a brief overview can be read here. Comments are closed.
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