CBL opens US$ 280 million LCs, mostly for food imports

By Sami Zaptia.

London, 28 April 2016:

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has announced today that it has opened LCs for a . . .[restrict]total value of US$ 280 million from 1^st January to the 27^th April 2016.

It revealed that of the total, US$ 153 million were LCs for the import of food and meat. It also revealed that of these LCs 53 were for LCs against documents. These LCs were opened as per the existing operating conditions  for opening LCs.

These LCs were specifically for companies importing foodstuffs including meat, in order to meet the anticipated high demand in the fasting month of Ramadan starting in June.

The CBL announcement comes as part of the policy announced jointly after a meeting between the CBL and the PC/GNA during which it was agreed to implement five urgent measures to resolve the acute economic conditions Libya was going through.

These included the plan to open LCs for a total of US$ 1.2 bn. It hopes that these measures will help decrease consumer prices and the black market rate of the US$. [/restrict]