Manufacturing survival

This is the overview of an Executive special report on industry. The rest of the report will be published here over the coming days. By any measure, Lebanese industry is doing abysmally. In the first six months of 2014, industrial exports declined by 29.3 percent year on year, whereas the corresponding period in 2013 had witnessed a 5.5 percent increase, according to Lebanese Customs. Excluding fuel exports, which mainly consist of diesel destined for Syria, the drop in H1 2014 was a milder 18.3 percent according to Bank Audi, but this is small consolation since the same measure for the corresponding period in 2013 records an 8.9 percent decrease. In other words, momentum is heavily geared toward the negative. Fingers are being pointed, most prominently at the country’s continuing electricity crisis and the war in Syria. The latter has had a clear effect, curtailing Lebanon’s sole land export route to the