The World Bank estimated that Lebanon's current economic impasse is among the ten most severe crises, and perhaps one of the three, in the world since the middle of the nineteenth century.
According to the report issued by the World Bank entitled: “Lebanon is sinking: towards the 3 worst global crises,” Lebanon has been facing for more than a year and a half, the challenges of exacerbation, which are the largest economic and financial crisis in peacetime, the Corona pandemic, and the Beirut port explosion. The Bank believed that the response of the Lebanese authorities to these public policy challenges was largely inadequate, due to the absence of political consensus and the protection of the economic system.
The bank estimates that Lebanon's real GDP will shrink by 20.3 percent in 2020, after shrinking by 6.7 percent in 2019. The World Bank defines Lebanon as falling within the range of countries experiencing fragility, conflict and violence, warning in this context of the growing potential drivers of social unrest.
The economic crisis in Lebanon began, since the last quarter of 2019, with a sharp decline in the exchange rate of the lira against the dollar, and the beginning of withdrawing savings and deposits from the banking sector in foreign exchange. The value of Lebanon's gross domestic product decreased from $ 55 billion in 2018 to $ 33 billion in 2020, while its per capita GDP decreased by about 40 percent.
Source (Anadolu Agency, Edited)
