Industrialists support MoI’s stand vis-à-vis WTO while LGTU rejects Lebanon’s accession

The Minister of Industry (MoI), Dr. Hussein Haj Hassan, discussed on Monday with the Association of Lebanese Industrialists (ALI) the mission of the delegation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) currently visiting Lebanon to try and talk the government into joining the international organization. ALI members welcomed the minister’s bold and sincere position, particularly “his role and responsibilities in protecting the national economic interests and the productive agricultural and industrial sectors.” On the opposite side, and in a statement released this Monday, the Lebanese General Trade Union (LGTU) completely rejected Lebanon’s accession to the WTO before the “setting up of restrictions that protect its economy and realizing a reduction in production costs, including the prices of fuel, expensive services and infrastructure.” The statement criticized the promotional campaign that calls for speeding up the accession process, “on the basis that everything foreign is good.” The trade union warned that such a move will hurt the domestic economy through removing all economic restrictions and eliminating tariffs constraints on imported goods, noting that the weakened small and medium enterprises cannot compete with intercontinental companies. “This inevitably will lead to their collapse and eventual closure, while turning our agricultural landscapes into barren uncultivable stretches of land,” the statement concluded. (As Safir, An Nahar, March 15, 2016)