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Lebanon Must Enact Drastic Reforms to Survive, Economists Say

Dale Gavlak

   AMMAN - The COVID-19 pandemic is inflaming an already severe crisis of
   inequality across the globe, according to a report released by aid
   group Oxfam International. Lebanon, now ravaged by economic, political
   and health crises, must enact drastic reforms in order to survive,
   economists say.

   Lebanon has the third-highest debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio in
   the world and is in need of extensive economic restructuring, Nasser
   Saidi, former minister of economy and trade in Lebanon, recently told
   the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.

   "If you look at other countries that have been in crisis -- Greece,
   Argentina, Iceland -- this goes well beyond that," he said. "We are
   seeing real GDP declining in 2020 by about 20 percent. It had already
   declined by 7 percent in 2019. So, this is a massive depression, even
   greater than that in the 1930s, in the Great Depression."

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