During a meeting yesterday at the premises of the Southern Farmers Gathering, the Syndicates of Farmers and Exporters appealed to caretaker prime minister Saad Hariri to personally mediate with the King of Jordan to reopen the Jordanian markets to Lebanese bananas. Noting, that this comes in line with the mutual agreement signed between the two countries to this effect and helps restore the trade balance in favor of Lebanon. The Syndicates urged Hariri to liaise with the Jordanian authorities to open borders to facilitate the entry of refrigerated trucks blocked at the Syrian-Jordanian borders. Farmers also demanded the Lebanese government to immediately intervene with its Syrian counterpart to ease the access of local bananas to the Syrian markets on the basis of reciprocity. And in this regard, the Southern Farmers’ Gathering in an address to Syrian President Bashar Assad, pressed for his prompt mediation to salvage the Lebanese production which is now at its peak and the Lebanese farmer is suffering huge losses as a result of dumping. (Al Diyar, November 15, 2019)