Economic analyst: Aqeela’s decision to tax the exchange rate may expose us to Iraq’s danger

Economic analyst Ahmed Al-Khamisi confirmed that Aguila Saleh’s decision to impose a tax on the dollar exchange rate may expose Libya to the risk of repeating Iraq’s scenario of a collapse of the local currency.

Al-Khamisi explained in exclusive statements to the “Safar” platform that although our situation is better than Iraq because we possess a sovereign fund for the state, unlike Iraq, this decision will not achieve any positive results and will have direct harm to citizens in the near future, including an increase in prices.

He added, “Libya has foreign exchange reserves estimated at about 82 billion dollars, it has a sovereign fund worth 70 billion dollars, and we have gold reserves amounting to 16 tons, which makes devaluing the currency again and imposing a tax on the exchange rate absolutely unacceptable.”

Al-Khamisi warned that imposing this tax could lead to a repeated devaluation of the local currency, repeating the Iraqi scenario in Libya, adding, “Also, increasing the tax in the first place requires approval from the Presidential Council, as happened in 2018, which makes it an illegal decision until now.”