Is dollarization best option for Lebanon’s collapsing economy?
In light of the continued collapse of the Lebanese currency, some are suggesting that the dollarization of the economy may be the best option to revive the country’s financial system.
BEIRUT — After his car broke down on his way from Beirut to his hometown in the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon, Ramzi Kassem, a father of three and a public sector employee, had to pay $1,500 to replace his car engine.
“I pay $100 on a monthly basis in private generator fees. At the pharmacy, the price of medicines is set according to the daily exchange rate of the dollar, just like commodity prices at the supermarket. Everything is priced in dollars,” Kassem told Al-Monitor.
Hanan Mustafa, a young Lebanese woman in her 30s, paid $12 for a laboratory test she took in a hospital in Sidon in southern Lebanon.
“I had the option to pay in Lebanese pounds at the black market exchange rate (it stood at 33,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar on that day), so it came to the same thing. I paid in dollars,” she told Al-Monitor.
