The combined impact of the economic crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and the Beirut Port explosion has generated the worst recession in Lebanon since 1975, the beginning of the civil war, according to new figures.
New figures reveal that revenues at the Port of Beirut fell 44.5 percent to $84.8 million in the first nine months of 2020 from $152.8 million in the same period of 2019.
The August 4 explosion, triggered when some 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrates caught fire, claimed more than 200 lives, injured 6,500 and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The port handled 3.3 million tons of freight during the same period, down 37 percent from 5.2 million tons in the first nine months of 2019.
Imported freight amounted to 2.7 million tons, down 40.5 percent, while export cargo reached 549,000 tons, a fall of 11 percent from the first nine months of 2019.
Despite a surge in activity at the Port of Tripoli in August, revenues also fell 19 percent to $9.4 million in the first nine months of 2020, in the aftermath of the explosion at the Port of Beirut.
Port of Tripoli handled 1.5 million tons of freight in the first nine months of the year, down 7 percent from 1.6 million tons in the same period of 2019.
Meanwhile, Beirut International Airport saw a 72 percent slump in the number of passengers to 2,219,845 passengers in the first 11 months of 2020, from 8.14 million passengers in the same period of 2019.
The number of arriving passengers dropped 77 percent to 1,016,992 while departures fell 74.6 percent to 1,149,741 passengers.
The significant decline in the number of airport passengers during the covered period was mainly due to the closure of the airport between March 18 and the end of June, as well as lockdown measures.
Beirut International Airport saw a 72 percent slump in the number of passengers to 2,219,845 passengers in the first 11 months of 2020
The figures released by the Ministry of Industry also reflected a deterioration in foreign trade activity.
Industrial exports declined 21.5 percent to $1.4 billion in the first eight months of 2020, from $1.7 billion in the same period of 2019. In parallel, imports of industrial equipment and machinery fell 59 percent to $58.3 million.
As an index of the deterioration in foreign trade activity, letters of credit opened to finance imports and exports fell significantly by 93.8 percent in the first 10 months of 2020 to $501 million, according to the latest statistics released by the Central Bank of Lebanon.
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