Exclusive agencies are now among the main suspects explaining the significant increase in prices. They are thus regularly accused of having set up real economic cartels controlling a large part of the Lebanese economy. A net importing country, Lebanon largely depends on exclusive agencies for most of its needs.
The Hassan Diab government thus presented a new plan to abolish exclusive agencies , one of the conditions of international economic aid and also a request from the IMF allowing the entry of the Country of the Cedars within the World Trade Organization (WTO) in its first drafts. However, following significant pressure, this project was quickly dismissed in the final version of this plan which was also the subject of strong opposition from the association of banks in Lebanon.
In addition, the exclusive agencies were among the main beneficiaries of the monetary policy conducted by the Bank of Lebanon with a maintenance of an artificial parity overvaluing the Lebanese pound against the dollar. Thus, Lebanese consumers were led to overconsume luxury products marketed by exclusive agencies when the economy itself did not have the capacity. While the balance of payments was thus generally positive due to a constant financial flow from the diaspora, the trade balance was generally negative by several billion dollars. This is one of the factors that brought Lebanon to the liquidity crisis and the financial crisis it is currently going through.
There are some 300 exclusive agencies in Lebanon, the most important and best known of which are Ketteneh, Fattal and Abou Adal, which in fact often have very close links with the political class. They must be registered with the Ministry of the Economy .
Certain companies are also accused of having established quasi-monopolies in certain sectors of activity which are normally free to competition. This is particularly the case for certain food products or even certain medical products and equipment refusing, for example, to repair equipment that has not been purchased directly from them.
Today, exclusive agencies face significant difficulties in pursuing imports due to the current financial condition of the financial sector. Local banks and even the Banque du Liban are struggling to provide the necessary credit lines to allow imports to continue.
