Intensive meetings in vain to promote agricultural exports

Prime Minister Tamam Salam received yesterday a delegation of the Beqaa export and agricultural syndicates who handed him a list of demands aiming at reaching a solution to the present export crisis in the wake of the closure of borders with Syria. The farmers’ requests mainly called for stepping up mechanisms of sea and air transport routes to salvage the remaining harvest seasons and easing procedures at the sea ports or inside the airport’s export rooms. The agricultural petition also included the following: requesting authorities to work by all means against the dumping of local markets with imported goods at a time of peak season; requesting IDAL to settle farmers subsidies from the agricultural export support program ‘Agri Plus’; allowing export trucks to operate internally in order to reduce the cost of shipment to ports. In the same vein, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Zahle, Beqaa, hosted a large meeting of the various agricultural unions in Lebanon to discuss new ways of export and the crisis of production and called for a quick solution to the problem. (Al Diyar, As Safir, 7 & 12 June 2015)