Poultry farmers stage a sit-in to demand protection against foreign competition

The Lebanese poultry farmers and egg producers staged yesterday a sit-in yesterday in front of the Ministry of Economy and Trade to demand the protection of the sector from illegal foreign competition. The protest which was called on by the Lebanese Poultry Syndicate led by Musa Freiji demanded an end to imports of poultry meat and products from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. These imports, they claimed, are originally brought in from Brazil and the Ukraine and re-exported to Lebanon as “an Arab product in order to avoid the payment of custom tariffs. Poultry traders and farmers also appealed to concerned authorities to doubles the fees of imported goods, and to control and stop the smuggling of eggs and chicken from Syria. Freiji grieved that while “the poultry industry in Lebanon provides for some 10 thousand families directly and for 5 thousand households indirectly, hundreds of farms have already closed because they are not capable of resuming production until imports are brought to a halt.” After the sit-in, a delegation of the syndicate met with the economy minister Alan Hakim and discussed with him the challenges and difficulties faced by the sector. Hakim, for his part, stressed that the priorities of his ministry are to “protect the domestic production and to activate and encourage the marginalized agricultural sector.”

As Safir, Al Diyar, An Nahar, April 15, 2016