The Libyan Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, has said that Libyan economic situation is very good and does not need any extraordinary measures, referring to the measures that the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is taking, especially imposing a 27% tax on the foreign currency exchange rate.
This response came in a recorded speech broadcast by Dbeibah government’s Hokoometna 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, underscoring the achievement of a surplus of 20 billion dinars.
“Where is the public debt that Aqila Saleh spoke about in his decision,” Dbeibah said, 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 fees 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 to support the CBL, which was equivalent to what previous governments achieved over 6 years.
He also confirmed that Libya’s foreign exchange reserves amountesd to $84 billion, which would be sufficient for a long period, noting the purchase of 27 tons of gold in June 2023, worth approximately two billion dollars, an achievement that had not happened in Libya since the 1970s.
Dbeibah said that imposing a tax on the foreign currency exchange rate would lead to a 26% devaluation of the Libyan dinar, adding that the public debt that HoR Speaker referred to was the parallel spending that the CBL talked about.
