Omar al-Rassi, “Akhbar al-Yawm” agency
Ajaka to "Akhbar al-Yawm": the apps are a "scam" operation to steal people
The news regarding the cancellation of the" banking platform" (SAYRAFA) was widely reported on the impact of a significant rise in fuel prices, which suggested that the Bank of Lebanon would stop selling the dollar to traders and companies.
While no position was issued by Banque of Lebanon, the Ministry of Finance issued only a brief statement: "if the news was true, Banque of Lebanon would have issued a statement on this matter."
Is there any intention to cancel this platform and the negotiations with the IMF are under way?
Economist Jassem Ajaka, via "Akhbar al-Yawm" agency, ruled out that the Bank of Lebanon has the intention to cancel the SAYRAFA platform, especially with the work to launch negotiations with the Monetary Fund, whose most important condition is to fully liberalize the exchange rate, and thus "SAYRAFA" will form a buying and selling platform for hard currencies. Saying that if the decision to cancel it, a similar platform will be set up to carry out this buying and selling task, stressing that it is the only place that constitutes the "official market of the dollar ".
The reason for the promotion of such a rumor, Ajaka considers that the high price of gasoline has reduced consumption, and therefore it does not make sense for traders to continue to demand the same amounts of dollars, explaining that the continuation of the same demand, means that there is smuggling, and to avoid this, the Bank of Lebanon may have limited the amounts that it will give in dollars.
Doesn't the continued rise of the dollar mean that the market has fully liberalized? Ajaka explains that the liberalization of the exchange rate is a transparent calculation, that is, as a result of supply and demand, after resorting to ORDER BOOK, i.e. adjust the buying and selling processes and their prices by placing them in a table from the highest to lowest price for sale and the highest to lowest price for purchase, these figures are compared to determine the price in a scientific and mathematical way, not based on the wishes of traders and manipulators of electronic platforms.
From this point of view, Ajaka asks: Who determines the price that is issued several times during the day through the applications? if this price is according to supply and demand, let the ORDER BOOK be published in front of all people similar to what the world's stock exchanges work on, and if this does not happen, the process is "rigged" to steal people .
He concludes: exchange rate liberalization is made in the style of a platform similar to a bank, during which all the demand, supply, sale and purchase are published, after which the dollar rate can be determined automatically.