BDL Governor Riad Salameh to France 24 (interview airs tonight): The era of the LBP peg is over and Lebanon is moving to a market-determined floating exchange rate.

Governor doesn’t plan to resign but if his plan to restructure the banking system isn’t implemented, “we’ll see”.

It honestly shocks me that he’d say all of this to foreign media first before the local press/local audience who are the ones affected by all of this. The audience of Lebanese officials is never the Lebanese people. They don’t see themselves as a public servants to us.

Unclear how the floating rate will be implemented, what happens to $ loans and deposits or BDL balance sheet which will immediately show losses, etc. Hard to understand why he’d drop info like this without proper context and explanation. Unclear if govt knows or is preparing.

What exactly is BDL’s plan to restructure banking sector anyway? There’s no serious urgent work being done. Not by caretaker govt, not parliament, not BDL. There’s no emergency working grp, no capital control, no debt restructuring, no budget, no bank resolution, no IMF, etc.

BDL clarification: https://twitter.com/azarstweets/status/1347640351968923648