TRIPOLI, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Libya's central bank devalued the dinar by 14.7 percent against the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) on Sunday, citing falling oil revenues and growing economic pressures.
The bank said the decision was made during its first board meeting of 2026 on Wednesday, following recommendations from the Monetary Policy Committee. After the devaluation, the exchange rate stands at 0.1150 SDR per dinar, down from 0.1348.
The bank cited political divisions, a global drop in oil prices, the absence of a unified national budget and rising public spending as reasons for the move. It said the devaluation was necessary to protect financial stability.
The SDR is an international reserve asset created by the IMF. Its value is based on a basket of five major currencies: the U.S. dollar, euro, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and British pound.
Separately, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah announced a 2.7-billion-dollar project to expand the Misurata Free Zone Port Terminal, financed by foreign investors rather than the state budget.
The project aims to raise the port's capacity to about 4 million containers a year. Dbeibah said the expansion would help make Libya a regional logistics hub while modernizing infrastructure and generating long-term revenue from state assets.
Misurata, on Libya's northwestern Mediterranean coast, is one of the country's main commercial centers and a key gateway for trade with Africa, officials said. ■