The Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah has said that the country’s economic situation is very good and does not need any exceptional measures, in reference to the measures that the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) intends to take, especially with regard to imposing a 27% tax on the foreign currency exchange rate.
This response came in a recorded speech broadcast by Dbeibah government's Hakomitna media platform on Monday evening, and it had included an implicit response to the statements of the Governor of the CBL regarding his government’s spending.
Dbeibah said that the public debt became zero after it had previously reached 154 billion dinars, noting the achievement of a surplus of 20 billion dinars, and wondering "where is the public debt that Aguila Saleh spoke about in his decision,” referring to the text of the HoR Speaker’s decision to tax the foreign currency exchange rate by 27% and transfer the revenues from the tax to pay off the public debt.
The Prime Minister said that the inflation rate fell to a very low level of 1.8% in 2023, and that the government provided $75 billion in support to the CBL, which is equivalent to what previous governments achieved over 6 years. He also confirmed that Libya’s foreign exchange reserves amount to $84 billion, which is sufficient for a long period, noting that 27 tons of gold were purchased in June 2023, worth approximately two billion dollars, an achievement that has not happened since the 1970s.
Dbeibah said that imposing a tax on the foreign currency exchange rate would lead to a 26% devaluation in Libyans’ dinar, adding that the public debt that HoR Speaker referred to was the parallel spending which the CBL talked about, indicating that the parallel spending cannot appear because it has an unknown source according to the CBL, and "I don't know how they'll cover it."
