The Libyan Foreign Exchange Revenue Deficit is at the Threshold of $ 8 billion

  • Tripoli, Libya
  • 23 December 2020
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The Central Bank of Libya revealed that the total deficit in foreign exchange revenues during the past eleven months of this year reached $ 7.97 billion, affected by the impact of crude oil exports during the first nine months of 2020.

According to the Central Bank, the total foreign exchange revenues until the end of last November amounted to $ 3.8 billion, including revenues from oil exports that took place in 2019 and received revenues in 2020. While the total foreign exchange payments amounted to $ 11.75 billion, in addition to $ 7 billion in outstanding commitments in the form of documentary credits that have not yet matured. The foreign exchange deficit was covered by using the liquidity available at the Central Bank.

The bank’s board of directors agreed on a new unified exchange rate across the country at 4.48 dinars to one US dollar. Noting that the dollar exchange rate is officially reported, according to the Central Bank, about 1.4 dinars, while its price in the illegal parallel market is more than 5 dinars, as a result of the political conflict and the decline in foreign exchange revenues, with the disruption of crude oil production from last January until the end of September 2020.

Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)