Lebanon’s Central Bank announced on Tuesday it was steeply lowering the value of the Lebanese Lira to LBP 38,000 per US dollar on its Sayrafa exchange platform, in a bid to ease the currency’s depreciation to record lows on the parallel market.

The Sayrafa platform rate sat at LBP 31,200 on December 23, the last day of trading.

It was trading at more than LBP 45,000 to the dollar on the parallel market and at exchange houses on Tuesday.