Riad Salameh World's Best Central Bank Governor – 24 September 2006

Salameh received the 2006 prize of the world’s best central bank governor at a ceremony in Singapore, on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, it said in a statement.

Central bank governor Riad Salameh has won a Euromoney award for his management of the crisis during Israel’s recent onslaught, the US finance magazine said Monday.

Euromoney Institutional Investor president Padraic Fallon, in presenting the prize, praised Salameh’s 13-year stint as the head of the central bank, particularly during the month-long war that ended on August 14.

During the Israel-Hizbullah conflict, Euromoney said that thanks to Salameh, “financial markets in Lebanon remained intact and there was no rush to banks to retrieve money or exchange large sums”.

It said Salameh also helped the country overcome a major crisis after the 2005 murder of five-time prime minister Rafik Hariri which initially led to the exit of about two billions of dollars and the conversion to dollars of Lebanese pounds amounting to some 5.5 billion dollars.

Donor nations earlier this month pledged 940 million dollars in aid to help Lebanon rebuild smashed infrastructure and recover from the Israeli offensive which is estimated to have caused several billion dollars’ worth of damage.

The IMF said in its World Economic Outlook report on Thursday that war-torn Lebanon is set for an economic slump this year because of the Israeli attacks but it should bounce back strongly in 2007. (AFP)

More at http://www.euromoney.com/article.asp?PositionID=16&ArticleID=1079137