Lebanon finance, foreign ministers to maintain posts

Lebanon’s finance and foreign ministers will retain their posts, a senior official said today, as rival parties near a breakthrough in talks on forming a new coalition government.

Ali Hassan Khalil, a top aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will remain finance minister, the official told Reuters. A second senior political source, who confirmed Foreign Minister German Bassil would keep his job, said Elias Bou Saab would become defence minister.

Lebanon is on track to form a new cabinet in days, politicians said, after months of wrangling that has hurt the outlook for its struggling economy.

More than seven months since a parliamentary election, rival parties have yet to agree a deal on the government as officials warn of economic crisis.

Bassil, President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, heads the Free Patriotic Movement, of which Bou Saab is also a member. The defence ministry in the outgoing cabinet was with the Christian Maronite FPM that Aoun founded.

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“We are on the brink of forming the government,” Berri, whose Shia Amal party is allied to  Hezbollah, was cited as saying yesterday.

The stagnant economy will be a top priority for the next government. Heavily indebted, Lebanon needs an administration that can set about long-stalled reforms to put public debt on a sustainable footing.

Lebanon is the world’s third-most indebted nation with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 150 per cent.

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