It would not be difficult to state that 2003 did not witness the fulfillment of the economic and financial objectives, which had been announced at the time of Paris II meeting in November 2002. Indeed, the gap between the stated and realized objectives is quite wide. It might be recalled that by mid-2002 the Lebanese economy was facing a three dimensional problem: a slow, not to say stagnating economy, a rapidly rising public debt (over $31 billion at the end of 2002) and worrying depletion of the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank as a result of its attempts to defend the stability of the Lebanese pound. As of June 2002, the net foreign exchange reserves of central bank were negative. Indeed, the document presented to the meeting by the Lebanese government had warned that unless external support was forthcoming, the corrective measures that the government had planned to
