Call for support to the labor-intensive conventional productive sectors

Member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Industrialists stressed the need to boost the conventional productive sectors, which are mainly dependent on uneducated and inexperienced workforce. Michele Mikhbat who also owns Fillitex Company said that neglecting these sectors will further aggravate the country’s economic, social and security conditions, especially when a wide group of people are losing their main livelihoods only to become poorer. He pointed out that theses conventional production enterprises, namely those in agriculture, attract unqualified labor who turned fifty and sixty, and still do not have the necessary education or capacity to work in more sophisticated industries or to hold administrative positions or become self-employed in liberal professions.
Mikhbat noted that these institutions employ nearly 85% of the total number of Lebanese workforce, adding that besides the normal challenges facing conventional productive sectors, there are new problems in exporting. Garments factories, for example, ship their merchandises to Western European and Scandinavian countries, amidst a diminishing Arab market which has become uncertain. However, the present regional crisis has negatively impacted on trade with the West. The German client, for instance, are now requesting a four-month shipment period ahead of the deadline to guarantee a safe arrival of the goods.
Mikhbat added that the situation has led to a decline in the volume of exports to Europe, and called for an emergency plan that cuts the cost of production. He also stressed the need for add-on bank interests to operational capital allocated for export and subsidizing them by 4.5% similar to new investments in industrial machinery and equipment. He disclosed that the Central Bank of Lebanon has agreed the plan, but the case is still under deliberation at the Ministry of Finance. (Al Diyar, 15 February 2015)