Lebanon to devalue currency by 90% on Feb. 1: Central bank chief

BEIRUT: Lebanon will adopt a new official exchange rate of 15,000 pounds per US dollar on February 1, central bank governor Riyad Salameh said.

The new rate marks a 90 percent devaluation from its current official rate. A change from the old rate of 1,507 to 15,000 is still far from the parallel market, where the pound was changing hands at around 57,000 per dollar on Tuesday.

Salameh said the change would apply to banks, reducing equity in the institutions at the center of the country’s 2019 financial explosion.