Consumer price inflation in Lebanon jumped by 136.8% on an annual basis during last October, under the pressure of the weakening of the Lebanese pound against the dollar in the local market.
The Central Statistics Department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers revealed that the consumer price index rose by 3.89 percent on a monthly basis, compared to last September.
The country's consumer price index measures changes in the prices of a group of goods and services consumed by local households, which affect purchasing power. Lebanon has been suffering for months, an economic crisis that is the worst since the end of the civil war (1975-1990), which led to a deterioration in the exchange rate of the lira against the US dollar in the parallel market, and a decrease in the purchasing power of most citizens.
Lebanon is facing accumulated crises that have caused foreign reserves to drop to record levels, which necessitated the announcement of measures that may end support for imports of basic commodities such as medicine, wheat and oil (fuel) in the coming weeks. These measures were reflected in the prices in the local market, which rose to record levels, as the deterioration of the currency's value exacerbates the suffering of the Lebanese, with the unemployment rate exceeding 50 percent, while the unemployment rate between April 2018 and March 2019 reached 35 percent among young people with university degrees.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
