The Lebanese pound, long a symbol of stability after civil war, is faltering.
One recent Saturday in Souq al Ahad, a ramshackle flea market that springs up every weekend under a highway bridge in East Beirut, an antique dealer recoiled as a customer counted off Lebanese pounds to pay for a small bag of trinkets.
Billions of dollars in remittances sent by rich Lebanese expatriates have long kept the country’s balance of payments in the black, even though Lebanon exports very little.When the 2011 Arab Spring protests sparked economic turmoil, the central bank dealt with deficits by using ever higher interest rates to keep the dollars coming.
But with reserves quickly disappearing, critics accuse the central bank of engaging in a sort of Ponzi scheme, with depositors facing the prospect that their dollars are simply gone. The measures have enraged clients, with some showing up in branches with guns and threatening staff, according to the head of Lebanon’s bank employees union, which on Monday called for a general strike in response to the mounting abuse.
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