Salam confident Lebanon can improve banking draft law for IMF endorsement

The International Monetary Fund has asked the Lebanese government to amend a banking draft law that would allow depositors to recover their funds and said it can't endorse the draft "as presented".

The law, a key demand from the international community to unblock economic aid to Lebanon, was approved last month by the Lebanese government. It stipulates that each of the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors will share the losses accrued as a result of the financial crisis.

Depositors, who lost access to their funds after the crisis, will be able to retrieve their money, with a limit of $100,000, over the course of four years.

"The IMF said it cannot endorse the banking draft law and suggested some amendments," Prime Minister Salam said, in an interview, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.

"I am sure that we will be able to find adequate solutions to some pending issues," Salam said.

In April, Lebanon's parliament adopted a bank restructuring law, as the previous legislation was believed to have allowed a flight of capital at the outbreak of the 2019 crisis.