Author(s): Mohammad Ibrahim Fheili
Lebanon walked out of Paris II in November of 2002 with US $4.5 billion in soft loans from countries friends of Lebanon. This represented, at the time, 25 percentage of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It must’ve been a much needed fund but it was not properly utilized. After that, political class’s appetite to spend grew stronger with little to no reforms to report or claim. The nature and magnitude of the debt problem couldn’t be made clearer with the statement of, then the chairman of the board or directors of the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL), in February of 2012, Dr. Francois Bassil, came out strong against banks continuing on the path of lending the government. It was utterly clear that Lebanon’s public debt is getting out of hands and it is no longer sustainable. With banks operating in Lebanon bearing half of the public debt in foreign currencies and over two-third of the debt denominated in domestic currency that put them in the eye of the storm.
