BUSINESS

$300 million needed immediately by industrialists to prevent collapse

he Central Bank (BDL) must allow manufacturers to carry out bank transfers abroad of $3 billion per Chairman of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists. Industrialists need an immediate injection of $300 million to fund their imports, otherwise the sector will drift into a perilous deterioration, he said. According to Gemayel, the Governor of BDL has agreed to take quick measures to ease the importation of industrial raw materials following consultation with the Association of Banks. He called on the Governor to extend the facilitations offered by BDL to pharmaceutical factories, to help them finance their imports of raw materials, to the entire industrial sector. For each $3 billion of imported raw materials, the industrial sector produces an output of $13 billion.