As governor of the Banque du Liban (BdL) since 1993, Riad Salamé has been one of the most influential figures in Lebanese public life in recent decades. Yet the country’s economic collapse — virtually unparalleled in recent history — has severely tarnished his reputation.
Many blame the failure of BdL’s ‘financial engineering’ programme — which saw the central bank offer unsustainably high interest rates to attract US dollars — on the collapse of the Lebanese pound, which has lost around 80% of its value since 2019.
