beirut nov 3 reuters  lebanon has stepped back from plans to slash its 25yearold official exchange rate with one closer to the market rate ministerial and political sources said thursday amid fears of a backlash from the public caretaker finance minister youssef khalil told reuters on sept 28 the state would repeg the dollar from 1507 to 15000 pounds in a step towards unifying the varied exchange rates that have emerged since the country entered an economic crisis in 2019 read more khalil had initially said the switch would occur on nov 1 but his ministry later said it would depend upon parliament approving a financial recovery plan which it has still not done political disagreements stopped the move no one in the country wants to bear responsibility for it a finance ministry source told reuters on thursday the source said that caretaker premier najib mikati was unwilling to greenlight the peg change until powerful shiite parties hezbollah and amal were on board a source from mikatis office confirmed the prime ministers reluctance to move without those parties buyin it would be hard to implement this now a source from one of the shiite parties told reuters lebanon has descended into one of the worst economic crises encountered by any nation during the past two centuries the lebanese pound has lost more than 95 of its value and the countrys poor make up more than 80 of the population in april lebanon agreed with the international monetary fund on a list of reforms to be implemented in order to gain access to relief funding  including unifying the exchange rate on thursday the lira was trading on the parallel market at a rate of 37500 pounds to the us dollar and on the central banks exchange platform 30100 while the official peg remained at 1507 byblos banks chief economist nassib ghobril said a new peg would have farreaching effects on the economy and should be coordinated with lebanons central bank and the imf its impact would affect the balance sheets of banks of the recapitalization process of loan repayments of the private sector and of regular citizens – in addition to the impact on inflation and on prices ghobril told reuters politically lebanon faces the unprecedented situation of having a caretaker cabinet with limited powers and no president the political considerations dominate thats a fact  and the cost is the delay in reforms ghobril said reporting by laila bassam and maya gebeily editing by simon cameronmoore