Lebanon’s economy minister said Lebanon’s financial recovery depends not only on economic reforms but also on security and political changes, including steps aimed at removing weapons from non-state groups and strengthening state control. Amer Bisat made the remarks after a cabinet session in which the Lebanese military reported progress on a plan to disarm Hezbollah and expand deployment in southern Lebanon.
“You need economic reforms, but you also need security and political reforms,” Bisat told The Associated Press. He said the government’s push for security and governance steps is intended to bolster investor confidence, and that it goes beyond disarmament and military deployment in the south.
Bisat said, “We’re moving, and we’re moving fairly decisively and clearly in that direction,” describing broader sovereignty measures that include tighter border and airport control. He also said, “(It) is also the control of the borders, control of the airport, control over smuggling, money-laundering, terrorist activities,” linking the plan’s security goals to areas that affect finance and cross-border movement.
The Lebanese military said Thursday it had completed the first phase of the plan. Israel, however, maintains that Hezbollah is still present and rearming in areas the army says it now fully controls.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024 battered large swaths of the country and further set back Lebanon’s economy after years of crisis. The World Bank estimated $11 billion in damages and economic losses from the 2024 war, and Lebanon’s protracted financial crisis began in 2019 following decades of corruption and mismanagement.
Bisat is part of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s reformist government, appointed last year with a mandate to reform the banks and make the economy viable again. He acknowledged that the government has stalled on wide-reaching reforms that could implicate Lebanon’s network of cronies, while Western countries and wealthy Gulf Arab monarchies that previously provided large sums of money have said investment and substantial help will not come without economic and security reforms.
Bisat said Lebanon faces a “credibility gap” and needs an international framework to address its problems. “We have a credibility gap, we need an international framework to help us solve our problems,” he said, adding, “The days in which people help us without us doing our homework are gone.”
In the cabinet’s reform push, Bisat pointed to Salam’s endorsement of a draft fiscal gap law that would set out the extent of losses — estimated to be tens of billions of dollars — suffered by Lebanese banks during the 2019 financial meltdown and create a mechanism to return depositors’ funds that were wiped out. Bisat said the draft has been criticized from all sides and it is unclear whether it will be passed by parliament. He called it, “an extremely important piece of legislation, without which this economy just will not be able to take off,” and said the law is not “Biblical” but meant as a framework to start serious discussions as negotiations proceed on a large and financially complicated problem.
Bisat also said he sees economic opportunities globally, particularly with Gulf countries that are slowly rebuilding ties with Beirut after previously cutting them to push back against Hezbollah’s influence. He cited regional changes, including the downfall of the Assad dynasty in Syria, and said wealthy Gulf states’ appetite for boosting international investments could provide further incentive for Lebanon to accelerate reforms, but that those opportunities depend on restructuring the banks and tackling corruption.
“Waiting is not an option. Precisely because time is not our friend,” Bisat said.