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00:00 "The Central Bank is a political entity that is different from the Central Bank's leadership
00:07 in the past.
00:11 Today, the government in the Central Bank is clearly a political entity that separates
00:18 the financial and the monetary policy.
00:21 In the past, the monetary policy was part of the financial policy and we have reached
00:26 what we have today.
00:30 This separation will help us a lot in managing the financial situation in general,
00:38 managing the international spending, and this is also clear in the budget that was prepared
00:46 recently for 2024, which seems to have numbers, although they are modest, but we may reach
00:55 at the end of the year a balance of interest.
01:02 This is a change from the previous one, and this interest is the foundation for a promising
01:10 financial policy in the future, despite the difficult conditions that Lebanon is going
01:14 through.
01:15 Don't forget something very important.
01:17 We always forget that Lebanon, as an economy, is not only one economy, but two economies.
01:26 If we have confidence in the local economy, the foreign economy, meaning our young people
01:33 who live abroad, will secure a second economy that supports the local economy.
01:41 We do not have savings, we live on the savings of the immigrants.
01:47 At the end of this month, we are on a meeting with the new assessment of the financial
01:52 work group to define the classification of Lebanon at the level of the risks of money
01:56 laundering.
01:57 Again, the risk of Lebanon's adoption of the gray map is on the horizon.
02:00 Do you expect this and how will it affect your opinion on the Lebanese economy?
02:05 I hope we will reach it, because it would be very difficult to reach it if they named
02:12 Lebanon.
02:13 My information and my support to the Lebanese banks is enough.
02:19 They spend a lot of time and human resources, 10 to 15% of the human resources, on the
02:28 subject of commitment, compliance.
02:34 The Lebanese banks do their jobs.
02:37 The problem is not with the Lebanese banks, but with the unorganized sector, which is
02:43 a parallel market.
02:45 This is what needs to be treated, and this is a political decision, not a decision of
02:50 a bank or a critic.
02:52 What about the economic cash, which is more than 46% in the Lebanese market?
02:58 How will this affect it?
03:00 What is the solution?
03:01 The solution is that the international community should support us.
03:06 The Department of Treasury, when it came to Lebanon recently, its logic was that the
03:12 banking sector should do its job and that there is no problem with the banking sector.
03:17 They want to cooperate with us to revive this sector, especially with its support for
03:24 banking services, which are present in America and Europe.
03:28 Support for the Western banks and support for the Arab banks as well.
03:33 But Dr. Mansouri, at the IMF conference, was not optimistic about the response of the
03:39 International Monetary Fund recently.
03:41 The IMF should help us to regulate the situation, to supervise our programs.
03:55 The decisions are personal decisions, we should make them.
03:59 This is my experience with the IMF.
04:01 It does not impose on you.
04:04 We should have a clear decision to re-form the financial sector in Lebanon.
04:12 I imagine that the new issues will be beyond the development of the banking sector.
04:18 There will also be a focus on the capital markets, which are the areas that are
04:24 based on a financial system that is different from the previous one.