BEIRUT - (Xinhua) The Board of Directors of the Association of Lebanon 'class='highlighted-tag'> announced today, Friday, that the banks operating in the country will start a strike from next Monday, in protest of the arrest of the chairman of the board of directors of a bank.

The move of the Association of Banks comes after the arrest of the chairman of the board of directors of a bank, who was released on a large financial guarantee, after investigations that lasted nearly 24 hours.

A statement by the Association of Banks said that the general assembly of banks, which will be held on the tenth of August, is expected to decide the position it deems appropriate regarding the continuation of the strike.

The statement stated that the association's board of directors discussed, in a meeting held yesterday, the issue of "malicious lawsuits" against banks, describing some of the rulings issued by references that are pre-selected from the plaintiffs as "arbitrary and populist."

The association's statement said that it "does not understand the reasons for the arrest of the chairman of a bank's board of directors due to a criminal complaint against him before the Appeal Public Prosecution in Mount Lebanon by a preferred shareholder who reproaches him for not distributing profits to her at a time when the bank did not achieve profits to distribute."

The statement considered the strike as "a general warning that is an invitation to all to deal seriously and responsibly with the current situation with the aim of moving towards real recovery."

The council's statement confirmed that the banks "tried as much as possible to deal flexibly" with what it described as "abnormal situations," considering that they "reached an unacceptable level and could no longer bear these situations."

He was surprised by the statement of the Association of Banks, "ignoring some of those charged with respecting the law and the content of its provisions, as if the application of the law had become optional for them and not obligatory."

And he denounced the taking of some references, "repressive measures that deal with people's freedoms and dignity, harm their reputation, and expose the relations of local and foreign banks, which causes great harm to bankers and depositors."

The statement pointed to "the impossibility of applying international accounting rules in Lebanon at the present time due to the general economic conditions that are the responsibility of the state that brought us to it," pointing to inflation and the non-unification of the national currency exchange rate.

The official exchange rate for the dollar in Lebanon is 1515 Lebanese pounds, while it is spent at a value of 8 thousand pounds for the dollar of the bank deposit, and about 24 thousand on the “exchange” platform of the Central Bank, while it exceeds 30 thousand on the black market.

Since 2019, Lebanon has been witnessing an economic collapse, which the World Bank ranked among the worst in the world since the middle of the last century, as the country suffers from political, economic, living and health crises, which were embodied in the scarcity of foreign currency, the collapse of the value of the Lebanese pound, the imposition of restrictions on withdrawing bank deposits, and the government stopping paying external and internal debts. .

The repercussions of the interlocking crises have led to a rise in the poverty rate in the country to 82%, an increase in unemployment, inflation, and a shortage of fuel, medicines and infant formula.