Lebanon economic reform plan to encourage donors
Lebanon, Economics, 2/1/2006

The Lebanese ministry of finance is currently preparing the budget of 2006 in compliance with a program for economic reform so as to submit it before a conference to help Lebanon alleviating the burden of its debt, due to be convened this year.

This conference which was due to be held in Beirut by the end of 2005 was postponed, but it was delayed in order to give the Lebanese government more time to agree to the plan.

Fears of another delay were provoked since the stalemate on the work of the government after five Shiite ministers suspended their participation in its session in December 2005.

The governor of the Central Bank Of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, said in October 2005 that Lebanon is preparing a program that can reduce budget deficits to zero within five years. He said that Lebanon will attract low interest rate long-term loans reaching 4 billion dollars during the donor conference.

Getting these loans is linked to government reforms contrary to the situation when Lebanon received 4 billion dollars in loans in a similar meeting in Paris in 2002.

Lebanon's budget budget has been around 28%. The Lebanese Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Tuesday evening that the revenues went down by 1.45% in 2005 from the previous year, while total spending went down by 3.20%.

The general debt estimated at 37 billion dollars is one of the largest at the world level. The general debt in Lebanon is two folds of the GNP.

The Lebanese parliament started discussions for the budget of 2005. It stressed the need of dealing with the economic, living and financial situation and called for submitting the budget of 2006 for discussion.

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