By Sami Zaptia.
London, 27 April 2016:
A consignment of newly printed banknotes from Britain arrived in Tripoli’s Mitiga airport today destined for . . .[restrict]the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya (CBL).
The shipment is thought to be part-consignment of a much larger order of LD 116 bn of post-Qaddafi era banknotes made in 2013 printed in the Britain. The CBL had stated that the balance of the deliveries were expected to arrive in consignments by the end of June.
The CBL said that today’s shipment will be distributed to all banks across the country.
The CBL had been expected to continue the phased withdrawal of the old Qaddafi-era banknotes, but there is speculation as to whether it will delay that in the short term in order to help mitigate the cash crises.
The CBL had brought forward this delivery in an effort to mitigate the current cash shortage the country was going through. It is not clear if this one shipment alone will solve the cash crises which was rumoured to be no more than LD 150 million. [/restrict]
