The Lebanese Central Bank issued on May 21 a statement concerning subsidized medicinal imports. In details, the statement uncovered that BDL sold Lebanese banks some $1.17 billion in foreign currencies in 2020 at the official exchange rate in order to cover for the import of medicinal products such as medications, medical equipment, baby formula and raw material for manufacturing medications. The statement added that since the onset of the year 2021 and up to May 20, some $485 million were sold to banks for the same purpose, with files for a total value of $535 million being currently under study, adding that BDL received over a period of 10 days 507 additional applications for a total value of $212 million. This sums to a total figure of $1.23 billion YTD May 2021, exceeding the full year 2020 figure. Accordingly, a meeting was held between the Central Bank Governor, the Minister of Public Health and the Head of the Parliamentary Health Committee where there was an agreement on forming a special committee from the Ministry to scrutinize the files that are currently pending at BDL according to market needs and to classify said files by priority and importance.