Lebanese industrialists will be allowed to directly import fuel oil and other petroleum derivatives due to current shortages in the local market.

This decision was announced by outgoing Minister of Industry Imad Hoballah after a meeting held at the Presidential Palace in Baabda. Were present, in addition to the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun and Imad Hoballah, the outgoing Minister of Energy and Water Raymond Ghajar, the Vice-President of the Association of Industrialists, Georges Nasraoui, the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Dr Antoine Choucair, and the Director General of the Ministry of Industry, Danny Gédéon.

For companies, it will be a question of solving the problem caused by power cuts including neighborhood generators and consequently of implementing resolution 66/2004. This fuel should not be affected by the subsidies granted by the Banque du Liban. The lifting of subsidies should also exclude it from any possibility of commercialization, the manufacturer paying for it in dollars, said the Minister of Industry.

As for the Ministry of Energy, it will have to facilitate these imports or the storage of petroleum products.

On the industrial side, the association’s vice president, Georges Nasraoui said that many factories are already at a technical standstill for lack of fuel and electricity. It is therefore a question of relaunching these factories and making it possible to deliver in particular to the local market.

This information comes as fuel shortages continue in Lebanon, while the Bank of Lebanon is struggling to grant in due time the lines of credit deemed necessary to allow the unloading of tankers which are nevertheless along the Lebanese coast.

However, this authorization could worsen the deterioration of the Lebanese pound’s parity against the dollar, as local manufacturers have to buy fresh dollars from the black market to finance these purchases.

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