Lebanon: small businesses caught by the throats of the economic crisis
The Lebanese pound has lost 10 times its value in a year and a half (illustrative image).
AP - Hussein Malla
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
In Lebanon, the crisis never ends.
The national currency continues to collapse, prices in supermarkets explode.
A situation which takes by the throat of many traders.
Publicity
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With our correspondent in Beirut,
Noé Pignède
The minimum wage of 675,000 pounds, which was worth 450 dollars a year and a half ago, is now worth only 45. Mechanically, this devaluation of the Lebanese pound by almost 10 has caused the prices of goods to rise. imported by 10. Result: traders forced to use products that Lebanon does not produce itself are strangled.
This is the case for many alcohols, most drugs, many foodstuffs, but also shampoo.
Élie Mrad has run a small hairdressing salon not far from the port of Beirut for 22 years, and between the damage caused
by the explosion of August 4
, the confinement which forced him to lower the curtain for several months and the economic crisis, his situation becomes untenable.
“
To repair my living room, it cost me $ 12,500 in cash.
With confinement, we work for a month, then we stay at home the next two.
And all the products cost nine, ten times as much.
To change a light bulb, a hair dryer, scissors… It has become overpriced.
Everything collapses !
», He explains.
The products that Élie uses to cut, wash and dye her hair are imported, and therefore billed in dollars.
Its customers always pay in Lebanese pounds.
But in two years, the currency has lost 90% of its value.
The hairdresser therefore had to lay off to save money.
“
Before, my turnover was 4-5-6, sometimes $ 7,000 a month.
Now it's $ 200.
Nothing at all.
I had 9 employees working for me.
I only kept one.
I could no longer pay the salaries of others.
Before, a dye cost the equivalent of $ 50.
Now it's only $ 7.
But you don't have to talk in dollars any more.
We must speak in books.
We must forget the dollar for the moment
, ”he explains.
Easier said than done for this father who wanted to send his sons to the United States for their studies.
A dream that has become impossible today.
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