 أردت now to Raid Shahfidin. You have the floor. Thank you Mr President. While the global health crisis and large scale lockdowns resulting from COVID-19 is inflicting a huge impact on different levels of the global economy including risk growth, risk management, inflation and over indebtedness the divergent recovery among advanced emerging and developing economies has been a major concern. In addition to the aforementioned risks, inherent downside financial risks have exacerbated particularly excessive risk taking and abnormal asset valuations vulnerabilities of the non-bank financial intermediaries financial tensions due to market corrections to asset disruptions and cyber insecurity. Due to the widening gap between economies, improvements in global health and economic indicators might have significant upside risks for global economy and vulnerable developing economies in particular. Lebanon is a developing country that is struggling on diverse fronts which are general and specific in nature. One is COVID-19 lockdown. Two is the geopolitical tensions including the searing crisis. Three the liquidity crisis that erupted in the last quarter of 2019. Four the government's decision to default on payment of all its outstanding Euro bonds in March of 2020. Five the Beirut port explosion on August 4th 2020 which caused major destruction in the Lebanese capital and led to the resignation of the government. Six the prevailing energy deficit that is paralyzing dynamic socio-economic sectors on national scales those are to name a few. The Lebanese economy has plunged into a severe contraction across all economic sectors combined with an unprecedented surge in prices. According to the IMF the economy has contracted by about 30% since 2017 and is expected to contract further in the remaining 2021 and 2022 while growth contraction has been estimated by Bonc d'Ileban the central bank of Lebanon BDL at negative 21.5% in 2020. The Lebanese lira has lost approximately 90% of its value and food prices have increased almost 10 folds since May of 2019. An employment is exceptionally high and over half of the households are below the poverty level. The average inflation rate in 2020 is 85% whereas the year on year inflation between July 20 and July 2021 has reached 123%. In the midst of the challenging circumstances that Lebanon is facing BDL the central bank of Lebanon has deployed has been deploying measures to help the economy survive and here I'm talking in my capacity as an observer I'm not a central bank official I haven't been an official for the past 2.5 years so as an observer looking at what the central bank has been doing and assessing the effectiveness of the measures have really counted and put together what the central bank has been doing. So these measures actually through this the Bonc d'Ileban has issued a series of circulars that reflect its management crisis strategy along with some key economic priorities. These initiatives can be divided into three main categories one the monetary and exchange rate policies two socio-economic support and three financial sector regulations. The first one is the monetary and exchange rate policies the BDL took measures aiming at facing the challenge of inflation caused by foreign exchange depreciation they included supporting imported role and industrial material and two prohibiting banks from buying foreign currencies in the parallel markets. As for the socio-economic support BDL took measures through many circulars aiming at mitigating the effects of GDP growth deterioration such as launching the Lebanese Oxygen Fund to support industrial imports and two providing banks with foreign currencies to finance the import of basic food items and raw materials necessary for food industry. Another measure was within that within that context was confronting the diverse macroeconomic crisis that have exacerbated the level of poverty the economic financial crisis the COVID-19 crisis and the port of Beirut explosion. These measures include directing banks to refrain from downgrading the classification of defaulting borrowers and compelling banks to provide exceptional loans to individuals and businesses affected by the Beirut port explosion. The third element was the financial sector regulations BDL took measures aiming at strengthening the positions of banks in terms of solvency and capitalization which in turn contributes to protecting depositors funds. These measures includes actions such as applying a statutory expected credit loss on foreign currency placements directing banks to refrain from disturbing profits to shareholders and compelling banks to prepare a plan to conform to the minimum capital requirements In addition to that there was a committee that was established to look at and restructure the Lebanese banking sector. My concluding remarks The initiatives launched by BDL the Central Bank of Lebanon through its circulars to address the economic financial crisis in Lebanon need to be combined with a set of key performance indicators to be able to assess the economic, financial and monetary repercussions and measure their quantitative results along with the extent of compliance Monetary policy measures would remain of limited impact in terms of timeframe and macroeconomic factors if they are not accompanied by and integrated with the development of a comprehensive and integrated economic financial plan in the short, medium and long term. Such a plan would include structurally formed measures aiming at first treating the underlying imbalances in public institutions especially those related to governance public service and sources of production second implementing a fiscal strategy that addresses the inequity in the tax systems and its mechanisms the deficit in the public finances the rescheduling restructuring of the public debt and the expansion of the social safety net third, correcting the shortages in the balance of payments especially resulting from the deficit in the trade balance in addition to the weaknesses in the mechanisms of the competitive economy and the integration of the market forces fourth and last pursuing a comprehensive restructuring of the financial sector and establishing a credible exchange rate system the ultimate objective remains to transfer the Lebanese economy from a rentier state to a productive reality Thank you very much I am very impressed by what you said on the drama of the situation which Lebanon has to cope with and all the elements of a perfect storm are there without any exception and I see also the acceleration of inflation which is quite impressive because you said 90% and if I understand 100% 100% and if I understand 123% over the last 12 months which is quite dramatic totally dramatic Thank you very much indeed