President Aoun: Lebanon needs ‘six to seven years’ to get out of crisis | Business and Economic Affairs

The Lebanese leader says the country needs six to seven years to recover from the worst of the crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanon needs “six to seven years” to get out of the crisis it is facing, the country’s president has said.

In a televised address on Friday, Michel Aoun said Lebanon had done so to this point as a result of “mistakes, theft, corruption, and systemic failure” and that the necessary “intellectual and practical” reforms will surely be made to improve.

“What the Lebanese people are suffering from is what they are living for today is because of the actions of those who were in power in the past who were given the lives of citizens,” he said in a statement. tweet.

Lebanon is in its third year economic turmoil which began in 2019 when the financial system collapsed due to high government debt and a lack of foreign exchange – which was the result of corruption, financial mismanagement, and unstable finances.

Aoun’s comments came just days after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a shocking comment on Lebanon’s economic collapse in a video downloaded on television.

“As far as I am concerned what is happening in Lebanon is that Lebanon used the same Ponzi scheme … which means that along with corruption and other, perhaps, thefts, the economic system has collapsed,” Guterres said in the video. .

Many other Lebanese government opponents have compared the financial system to the Ponzi scheme, based on a new loan to repay existing debt. The central bank has objected to this.

The loss has resulted in the Lebanese pound losing more than 90 percent of its value and stockpiles to close their deposits in crippled banks.

Mike Azar, a Lebanese economist, said Guterres had expressed similar sentiments at a closed-door meeting between a UN official and members of Lebanese organizations on Tuesday.

Asked by Reuters what he had said, a United Nations spokesman said the secretary-general’s views on the financial crisis had been “fully explained” at a press conference at the end of his visit.

At a press conference, Guterres said Lebanese leaders should reassure countries to support Lebanon by implementing “economic, social and political reforms”, and in line with a “reliable economic recovery plan”. talks about the IMF support program.