Lebanon’s housing authority to restart subsidization scheme

How far will LL100 billion go? That was the main question Executive posed to Rony Lahoud, head of Lebanon’s public housing authority, the Public Corporation for Housing (PCH). While there are still variables to be calculated, at the time of this interview in late October, Lahoud suggested that almost two thirds of the demand for subsidized loans via the PCH would go unsatisfied next year. For nearly two decades, until the end of 2017, Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank, had offered cheap credit to commercial banks with the understanding that savings would be passed on to home loan borrowers (see October cover story). This year, BDL still offered cheap credit worth $500 million to the banks to finance home loans as part of its stimulus package, but that money was quickly used up. By July, the PCH had to stop accepting loan applications, creating a housing loan crisis