Lira & the economy
43 events
- 22 November 1943The lira at independence: tied to the French franc
- 24 January 1948Monetary agreement with France: the lira leaves the francOn 24 January 1948 Lebanon signed a monetary agreement with France that unpegged the lira from the deteriorating franc…
- 14 March 1950End of the Lebanese–Syrian customs union
- 1 April 1964Banque du Liban begins operationsOn 1 April 1964 the Banque du Liban began operations under the Code of Money and Credit (1963), taking over the issue…
- 14 October 1966Collapse of Intra BankOn 14 October 1966 Intra Bank, the largest bank in Lebanon and the institution of Yousef Beidas, which owned Middle…
- 17 October 1973The rise of Saudi Arabia
- 6 February 1984The lira begins to slideAfter eight years of war the lira had held near 3–5 to the dollar thanks to the reserves and remittances; with the…
- December 1987The lira passes 500 to the dollarIn December 1987 the dollar passed 500 lira, from 87 a year earlier; salaries and savings melted away, a wave of…
- 6 May 1992The "hunger uprising"On 6 May 1992, with the dollar at about 3,000 lira, demonstrators burned tyres, blocked roads in Beirut and the regions…
- 16 May 1992Resignation of Omar Karami's governmentThe resignation was preceded by sit-ins and strikes throughout 1991–1992 over the collapse of the lira (from 880 to the…
- September 1992The lira at its lowest: about 2,800 to the dollarIn September 1992, after the hunger uprising and during the elections, the dollar reached about 2,800 lira, the worst…
- 31 October 1992Rebuilding Beirut
- December 1997Lira pegged at 1,507.5 to the dollar
- 23 November 2002The Paris II conferenceOn 23 November 2002 Chirac and Hariri gathered the donor states and financing funds in Paris, which pledged some 4.4…
- 13 July 2003Collapse of Bank al-Madina; Rustom Ghazaleh accused of siphoning $72mIn 2003 Bank al-Madina collapsed with a gap estimated at between 1.2 and 1.65 billion dollars. Its chairman Adnan Abou…
- 27 May 2004The Hay al-Sellom events
- 25 January 2007The Paris III conferenceOn 25 January 2007, at the height of the central Beirut sit-in and two days after the strike of 23 January, Chirac…
- 17 July 2015The garbage crisis
- 18 December 2015Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act signedOn 18 December 2015 President Obama signed the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act, which punishes foreign…
- 3 May 2016BDL circular 137 implementing the US lawOn 3 May 2016 the Banque du Liban issued intermediate circular 137 obliging the banks to apply the American law, and…
- June 2016The Banque du Liban "financial engineering"From 2016 the governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, launched what were called the "financial engineerings":…
- 17 August 2017The salary scale and its tax package passed
- 6 April 2018The CEDRE conference in ParisOn 6 April 2018 the CEDRE conference in Paris pledged some 11 billion dollars in loans and grants for an infrastructure…
- 17 March 2019Battle over BdL vice-governors: Washington backs keeping Baasiri
- 17 October 2019The October protestsOn 17 October 2019 demonstrations broke out in every region after a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls, and turned into an…
- 1 November 2019Banks close and informal capital controls beginIn November 2019, after a two-week closure since 17 October, the banks reopened with unlawful restrictions on…
- 27 February 2020First offshore drilling in Block 4 ends without a find
- 7 March 2020Lebanon defaults on its EurobondsOn 7 March 2020 Hassan Diab announced the suspension of payment on 1.2 billion dollars of Eurobonds due on 9 March, the…
- 21 April 2020Circular 151: the "lollar" at 3,900
- 29 April 2020Diab publicly attacks the central bank governor
- 30 April 2020The government recovery plan and the start of IMF talksOn 30 April 2020 Hassan Diab's government approved a recovery plan estimating the losses at some 241 trillion lira and…
- 10 June 2020New BdL vice-governors appointed; Baasiri out
- 10 August 2020Hassan Diab steps downOn 10 August 2020, six days after the port explosion and angry demonstrations, Hassan Diab's government resigned after…
- 2 March 2021The dollar passes 10,000 liraOn 2 March 2021 the dollar passed 10,000 lira on the parallel market, and protests and road closures broke out in every…
- 11 August 2021Fuel, power and medicine shortages
- 15 August 2021The Tleil explosion
- 7 April 2022Staff-level agreement with the IMFOn 7 April 2022 Lebanon and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement on a three-billion-dollar programme over four…
- 11 August 2022The Alvarez & Marsal forensic audit of the central bank
- 14 September 2022Depositors storm the banks: the Sali Hafez case
- 1 February 2023Official rate moved to 15,000On 1 February 2023 the Banque du Liban changed the official exchange rate from 1,507.5 to 15,000 lira to the dollar,…
- 21 March 2023The dollar passes 100,000 liraIn March 2023 the dollar passed 100,000 lira and reached about 140,000 on 21 March before falling back and settling…
- 16 May 2023French arrest warrant for Riad SalamehOn 16 May 2023 the French judiciary issued an international arrest warrant for the Banque du Liban governor Riad…
- 31 July 2023Salameh's term ends; Mansouri takes over as acting governorOn 31 July 2023 Riad Salameh left the Banque du Liban after thirty years without a successor being appointed, and the…