Boosting the Lebanese Food Industry to Preserve and Create Jobs

ENAR

The Lebanese food industrial sector is capable of supplying most of the basic products that were imported into Lebanon before the onset of the 2019/2020 crisis. The sector’s output encompasses a wide variety of products, ranging from poultry and processed meats, to the whole range of dairy products (except butter and processed yellow cheese), jams, pickles, spices, nuts, coffee, edible oil, confectionery and snacks, bread and pastries, without forgetting a range of juices, mineral water, spirits and wines. Due to the financial crisis and LBP devaluation, imports are becoming increasingly expensive and unaffordable. Exports represent one of the few sectors that maintained a steady growth in volume since the early 2000s, and even when the economic decline started in 2011, exports stood still, or decreased modestly. I want to address two primary points in regard to the food industry. First, how Lebanon can leverage the food sector to create jobs,