The latest crisis between Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states has prompted the private sector to mobilize, especially those affected by the export ban to Saudi Arabia.
The economic bodies have warned against any escalation and announced that they would declare a general strike, if the crisis is not resolved in the coming days. The Association of Lebanese Industrialists (ALI) also regretted the state’s irresponsibility despite the great damages that will affect the industrial and agricultural sectors.
To comment more on this subject, the Vice President of ALI, Ziad Beckdash joins us.
The emerging crisis with the Gulf countries have left severe repercussions on Lebanon, as DHL announced that it was officially notified of the decision to halt the postal service from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia and to Bahrain, and to begin returning the mail it previously received to be sent to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, to customers in Lebanon.
The head of the Gas Distributors Syndicate, Jean Hatem, announced that the companies have stopped delivering cooking gas bottles to the market since last Saturday due to the high exchange rate of the dollar compared to the fuel price schedule issued by the Ministry of Energy and Water, which set the price of a bottle of gas at the exchange rate of 20,000 LBP per dollar.
Hatem told Sawt Beirut International that the high exchange rate costs the importing companies a loss of 15,000 LBP per bottle of gas, noting that the stoppage of the distributed companies since Saturday will cause gas outages in the market. He called on the Ministry of Energy to issue the price schedule as soon as possible to avoid additional crisis.