ترأس رئيس الجمهورية العماد ميشال عون اجتماعاً في قصر بعبدا، حضره رئيس الحكومة نجيب ميقاتي ونائبه الوزير سعادة الشامي ووزيري المال يوسف الخليل والاقتصاد والتجارة أمين سلام ورئيس بعثة صندوق النقد الدولي ارنستو ريغو راميريز، وذلك للإعلان عن الاتفاق مع الصندوق على البرنامج الاقتصادي.
وجدد ميقاتي بعد الاجتماع الالتزام الكامل في التعاون مع صندوق النقد الدولي لاخراج لبنان من كبوته ووضعه على سكة الحلّ، لافتاً الى أن الشروط ستكون على جدول أعمال مجلس الوزراء قبل الإنتخابات النيابية لإرسالها على شكل مشاريع قوانين إلى مجلس النواب، وعلى مجلس النواب أن يبتّها وليس الحكومة.
وأكد ميقاتي أنه سيتم التعاون بشكل وثيق لضمان التطبيق السريع لكل الاجراءات المتفق عليها مع الصندوق لاخراج لبنان من كبوته ووضعه على سكة الحلّ، مشيراً الى أن الأزمة تتطلب برنامجاً إصلاحياً شاملاً لتحقيق الاستقرار المالي وهذا الأمر يتطلب بدوره سياسات وإصلاحات فعالة لإنعاش الاقتصاد، فالمبلغ لا يدفع على دفعة واحدة وعلى ضوء ما نقوم به من إصلاحات سيزداد هذا المبلغ، مشدداً على أن الاصلاحات تصب في مصلحة لبنان.
و، بحسب ما أوردت وكالة فرانس برس نقلاً عن مسؤول.، فقد توصل صندوق النقد الدولي إلى اتفاق مبدئي مع لبنان على خطة مساعدة بقيمة 3 مليارات دولار
هذه تفاصيله:
IMF Reaches Staff-Level Agreement on Economic Policies
with Lebanon for a Four-Year Extended Fund Facility
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
• The Lebanese authorities, with IMF staff support, have formulated a comprehensive
economic reform program aiming to rebuild the economy, restore financial
sustainability, strengthen governance and transparency, remove impediments to jobcreating growth, and increase social and reconstruction spending.
• The agreed program is subject to IMF management and the Executive Board
approval, and the Lebanese authorities have agreed to undertake several critical
reforms ahead of the IMF Board meeting.
• Financing support on highly concessional terms from Lebanon’s international partners
will be essential to support the authorities’ efforts and ensure that the program is
adequately financed and can meet its objectives.
Washington, DC – April 7, 2022: In response to a request by the Lebanese authorities, an
International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo visited Beirut,
Lebanon from March 28 to April 7, to discuss IMF support for Lebanon and for the authorities’
comprehensive economic reform program. At the end of the mission, Mr. Ramirez Rigo made
the following statement:
“The Lebanese authorities and the IMF team have reached a staff-level agreement on
comprehensive economic policies that could be supported by a 46-month Extended Fund
Arrangement (EFF) with requested access of SDR 2,173.9 million (equivalent to about US$3
billion). This agreement is subject to approval by IMF management and the Executive Board,
after the timely implementation of all prior actions and confirmation of international partners’
financial support. The EFF aims to support the authorities’ reform strategy to restore growth
and financial sustainability, strengthen governance and transparency, and increase social and
reconstruction spending. This will need to be complemented by the restructuring of external
public debt that will result in sufficient creditor participation to restore debt sustainability and
close financing gaps.
“Lebanon is facing an unprecedented crisis, which has led to a dramatic economic contraction
and a large increase in poverty, unemployment, and emigration. This crisis is a manifestation
of deep and persistent vulnerabilities generated by many years of unsustainable
macroeconomic policies fueling large twin deficits (fiscal and external), support for an
overvalued exchange rate and an oversized financial sector, combined with severe
accountability and transparency problems and lack of structural reforms. These all came to a
head in late 2019 with the acceleration of capital outflows that led to the sovereign default in
March 2020, followed by a deep recession, a dramatic fall in the value of the Lebanese
currency and a triple digit inflation. The crisis has been compounded by the Covid pandemic
and the August 2020 port of Beirut explosion, while the war in Ukraine is exacerbating
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pressures on the current account and inflation and straining further food and fuel supplies. The
living conditions of the population, especially the most vulnerable, have deteriorated
dramatically, in part due to the lack of resources and a robust social protection network.
“The authorities recognize the urgent need to initiate a multi-pronged reform program to tackle
these challenges, bring back confidence and put the economy back on a sustainable growth
path, with stronger private sector activity and job creation. In this regard, their plan is based on
five key pillars:
• Restructuring the financial sector to restore banks’ viability and their ability to efficiently
allocate resources to support the recovery;
• Implementing fiscal reforms that coupled with the proposed restructuring of external public
debt will ensure debt sustainability and create space to invest in social spending,
reconstruction and infrastructure;
• Reforming state-owned enterprises, particularly in the energy sector, to provide quality
services without draining public resources;
• Strengthening governance, anti-corruption, and anti-money laundering/combating the
financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) frameworks to enhance transparency and accountability,
including by modernizing the central bank legal framework and governance and
accountability arrangements;
• Establishing a credible and transparent monetary and exchange rate system.
“Decisive policies and reforms in these areas, together with significant external financing, are
necessary to achieve the authorities’ objectives during the coming years.
“This includes improving public finances and reducing public debt through revenue-generating
and administrative reform measures to ensure a more equal and transparent distribution of the
tax burden. The 2022 budget is a first critical step in this direction. It aims to achieve a primary
deficit of [4] percent of GDP supported by a change in imports valuation for custom and tax
purposes to be done at a unified exchange rate. This would allow for an increase in
allowances to public sector employees to re-start the functioning of the public administration
and for an increase in social spending, with the goal of protecting the most vulnerable. The
budget deficit will be externally financed, and the practice of the central bank financing will be
abolished.
“The BdL will be guided by the overarching objectives of creating the conditions for disinflation
including by moving to a new monetary regime. It will focus on rebuilding its foreign currency
reserves and maintaining a single market-determined exchange rate, which will help the
functioning of the financial sector, contribute to a better resource allocation in the economy,
and allow for the absorption of external shocks. The BdL mandate and its governance
structure will be strengthened through the adoption of a wide-ranging reform of the necessary
legislation.
“Health and viability of the financial sector will need to be restored for the country to be able to
lift the existing uncertainty and provide conditions for strong economic growth. Total
recapitalization needs in the banking system are very large, and losses will need to be
recognized upfront and allocated, while protecting small depositors. An appropriate strategy
has been designed, but its implementation requires a number of legislative changes to support
it.
“These initial steps will be followed by other reforms. Tax policy and revenue administration
reforms will broaden the tax base and strengthen revenue intake. Comprehensive plans for
cost-recovery in the energy sector and the introduction of a new state-owned enterprises
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framework to improve their governance and oversight will help reduce hemorrhage of scarce
government resources. The modernization of the public finance management framework,
implementation of the recently approved procurement law, the passage of the competition law,
a reform of the civil service and pension and retirement schemes will increase transparency
and spending efficiency. Fiscal space created by these efforts will be used to improve social
protection and equity among the Lebanese population as well as for infrastructure and human
capital development. Frameworks for banking supervision, resolution AML/CFT, as well as
deposit insurance and asset declaration regimes will be strengthened, and the National AntiCorruption Commission will be fully operationalized.
“These efforts will be supplemented by reforms already under way or to be discussed with
other multilateral and regional financial institutions, bringing in their critical expertise and
financing, and assisting the authorities’ efforts to lay the foundations for a stronger and more
sustainable economy.
“The authorities are cognizant of the challenges they face in implementing this ambitious
agenda but have stressed that this reform program is critical to end the current crisis and
enjoys the support of the broad political leadership. They expressed their strong commitment
to carry out this reform program and sustain decisive implementation during the upcoming
parliamentary and Presidential elections. The authorities are also committed to stepping up
their efforts to communicate and explain their reform plans to the public.
Finally, the authorities understand the need to initiate the reforms as soon as possible, and
have agreed to complete the following measures prior the IMF Board’s consideration:
• Cabinet approval of a bank restructuring strategy that recognizes and addresses upfront the
large losses in the sector, while protecting small depositors and limiting recourse to public
resources.
• Parliament approval of an appropriate emergency bank resolution legislation which is
needed to implement the bank restructuring strategy and kickstart the process of restoring
the financial sector to health, which is fundamental to support growth.
• Initiation of an externally assisted bank-by-bank evaluation for the 14 largest banks by
signing the terms of references with a reputable international firm.
• Parliament approval of a reformed bank secrecy law to bring it in line with international
standards to fight corruption and remove impediments to effective banking sector
restructuring and supervision, tax administration, as well as detection and investigation of
financial crimes, and asset recovery.
• Completion of the special purpose audit of the BdL’s foreign asset position, to start
improving the transparency of this key institution.
• Cabinet approval of a medium-term fiscal and debt restructuring strategy, which is needed
to restore debt sustainability, instill credibility in economic policies and create fiscal space
for additional social and reconstruction spending.
• Parliament approval of the 2022 budget, to start regaining fiscal accountability.
• Unification by BdL of the exchange rates for authorized current account transactions, which
is critical for boosting economic activity, restoring credibility and external viability, and will
be supported by the implementation of formal capital controls.
“The IMF team is grateful to the Lebanese authorities and several civil society and private
sector groups for the open and constructive discussions and their hospitality