With the beginning of the new year, talks and discussions about adjusting the official exchange rate started taking place between Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and Minister of Finance Youssef Khalil.

The officials are discussing the possibility of raising the exchange rate from 1,507 pounds to 3,000, 6,000 or 9,000 Lebanese pounds for a dollar during the next two months.

To shed more light on this topic, the economist Roy Badaro joined us.

The Union of Banks Employees called on the management of the Association of Banks to “work seriously to return deposits to their owners within reasonable deadlines, in parallel with the economic recovery plan that will be approved in coordination with the International Monetary Fund.”

The union declared its rejection of “any project to restructure the banking sector that also comes at the expense of the weaker party, so that it leads to the random dismissal of thousands of employees, or even dismissal without the fair compensation previously proposed by the Union in the draft amendment to Article 4 of the Banking Merger Law, which is still in the Parliamentary committees’ drawers.