For an Emergency Economic Rescue Plan for Lebanon
▻http://lcps-lebanon.org/featuredArticle.php?id=254
A group of Lebanese economists, political scientists, and jurists met on November 1, 2019 to consider their priority recommendations on how to deal with the urgent financial and economic challenges that the country is facing at the moment. The group considers that Lebanon must now mobilize to act rapidly and in determined ways to avoid the risk of a financial meltdown and economic collapse. A failure to act fast risks a spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese Pound (LBP), generating inflation, unemployment, impoverishment, and a further deterioration of basic public services.
Our main conclusions, summarized below, relate to urgent need to develop a comprehensive economic rescue package, to be implemented in a coordinated way, and which includes:
– A careful management of the rapidly dwindling foreign reserves, to defend the value of the LBP, including by establishing tighter measures of capital control;
– A deep fiscal adjustment with credible plans to fight corruption;
– New social policies to protect those most affected by the current crisis;
– Importantly, a negotiated debt reduction plan with a fair burden sharing across society; and
– A monitoring mechanism that allows the population to put pressure on the implementation of these reforms, while state oversight mechanisms are reinforced.
While there is a need to urgently form a credible government that can inspire confidence, some of the actions discussed below cannot wait and should not be held hostage to political events. The caretaker government should mobilize immediately a crisis group to act on these most urgent matters.
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Signatories:
Sami Atallah, Joseph Bahout, Karim Emile Bitar, Amer Bsat, Jad Chaaban, Georges Corm, Karim Daher, Ishac Diwan, Jamal Haidar, Kamal Hamdan, Nadim Houry, Chibli Mallat, Sybille Rizk, Nizar Saghieh, Paul Salem, Nisreen Salti, Fadi Twainy, Maha Yahya.
