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BEIRUT: Lebanon hopes for a new staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund, Finance \u200bMinister Yassine Jaber has said, adding that a full IMF program still required \u200cBeirut to pass a final law to address losses from its financial crisis.<\/p>\n
Lebanon first signed a staff-level agreement with the IMF in April 2022, more than two years after its financial system imploded following decades of \u200bprofligate spending and corruption in the ruling elite. But it was slow to implement \u200bthe promised changes.<\/p>\n
The current government has fast-tracked reforms, including a bank restructuring \u2060law that was welcomed by the IMF in August.<\/p>\n
Jaber was in Washington on Monday to meet \u200bwith IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. In comments published late on Sunday, Jaber said he \u200bwould tell her it was imperative to start work on a full IMF program, which would be expected to involve loans, as Lebanon had worked seriously on financial reforms over the last 18 months.<\/p>\n
“Lebanon has accomplished a \u200bphase; it passed the banking restructuring law, which was of course a very important message \u200bto the Fund and to the world that the parliament and the Lebanese government are serious about reforms,” \u200cJaber \u2060said in a video released by his ministry.<\/p>\n
He said a full-scale agreement with the IMF would have to wait for the passing of the “financial gap law”, legislation intended to distribute the losses from the 2019 crash.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the government put the losses at about $70 billion, a figure that \u200bis likely to be \u200bhigher now. Those losses \u2060need to be distributed between the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors, to allow depositors who have been frozen out of their \u200bsavings to gradually recover their money.<\/p>\n
A source familiar with the process said \u200ba staff-level \u2060agreement could be signed as soon as Monday. A second source said it was likely by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
A full IMF program in any case takes longer as it requires \u2060approval by \u200bthe IMF board.<\/p>\n
The government put forward a financial gap \u200bbill last year but it has yet to be passed.<\/p>\n
Financial reforms have been repeatedly derailed by political and private interests over \u200bthe last seven years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n