Salameh says no one has talked to him about term extension

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has announced that he has decided to leave his post following the end of his term.

“No one has talked to me about extending my term at the Banque du Liban, and with my exit from the central bank I will turn a page on a chapter of my life,” Salameh told the Al Qahera News TV.

Separately, Salameh said there are financial “difficulties” in Lebanon, not a “collapse.”

“This can be proven with numbers. The banking sector paid deposits worth around $35 billion over three years and this sector is still implementing the central bank’s circulars,” he added.

Noting that Lebanon’s current foreign currency reserves are $10 billion and that the gold reserves are estimated at around $17 billion, Salameh clarified that “the reserves today are $15 billion,” $10 billion of which can be used outside Lebanon while the rest are “local dollars.”

“The losses have reached $50 billion in the private and public sectors and the deposits will remain as long as the central bank has not gone bankrupt,” Salameh went on to say.