{"id":609810,"date":"2023-02-19T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T20:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/19\/lebanons-central-bank-chief-says-he-will-not-renew-his-term\/"},"modified":"2023-02-19T14:15:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T20:15:00","slug":"lebanons-central-bank-chief-says-he-will-not-renew-his-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/19\/lebanons-central-bank-chief-says-he-will-not-renew-his-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon’s central bank chief says he will not renew his term"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Lebanon's
\n\u00a9 Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during a news conference at Central Bank in Beirut, Lebanon, November 11, 2019. REUTERS\/Mohamed Azakir<\/span>
\n<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

CAIRO (Reuters) -Lebanon’s embattled central bank chief Riad Salameh said on Sunday he would leave his post once his latest term ends in July even if he is asked to stay longer. <\/p>\n

“No one has asked me to continue [as central bank chief] but even if they do, I think this is enough,” he said in a televised interview with Egypt’s AlQahera News on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Salameh, who became the head of the central bank in 1993, has come under increased scrutiny both at home and abroad since Lebanon’s financial system began unraveling in 2019.<\/p>\n

The collapse has locked most savers out of their bank accounts and pushed more than 80% of Lebanon’s population below the poverty line. <\/p>\n

Salameh, meanwhile, is being investigated in Lebanon and abroad for alleged embezzlement. Lebanon’s finance minister has said he would be difficult to replace once his term ends. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, Salameh said the economic crisis was due to ongoing political instability and that inadequate foreign currency reserves had prompted parallel exchange rates. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Lebanon officially devalued the national currency for the first time in more than two decades to 15,000 pounds to the U.S. dollar, a 90% devaluation from the previous peg of 1,507.<\/p>\n

That still lies far off the parallel market, which has hovered around a record-breaking 80,000 pounds to the U.S. dollar over the last week.<\/p>\n

Salameh on Sunday said Lebanon’s foreign exchange reserves currently measured at $10 billion and that he was in favor of unifying all exchange rates – one of the preconditions set out by the International Monetary Fund for Lebanon to get access to $3 billion in relief funds. <\/p>\n

Those preconditions also included an audit of the central bank’s foreign asset position, which includes gold. <\/p>\n

Salameh said on Sunday that Lebanon’s gold reserves were valued at $17 billion.<\/p>\n

The central bank had announced in November 2022 that a “specialized and professional international auditing firm” had completed an audit of the gold reserves but had not announced its value.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Leigha Geddes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a9 Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during a news conference at Central Bank in Beirut, Lebanon, November 11, 2019. REUTERS\/Mohamed Azakir CAIRO (Reuters) -Lebanon’s embattled central bank chief Riad Salameh said on Sunday he would leave his post once his latest term ends in July even if he is asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":609811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22947,534,4745],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-609810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-central","8":"category-financial","9":"category-lebanons"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}