Listen to the article
The unprecedented economic crisis in Lebanon has led to a certain amount of creativity on the part of the Lebanese, who are anxious to generate foreign currency as the Lebanese pound has lost more than 90% of its value.
Although Lebanon imports more than 85% of its consumer goods – a massive figure compared to what it strives to export – the list of exports has grown. It now includes new items that, admittedly, not many people would have thought of.
A new trade is booming in the Land of the Cedars. It’s the trade in casings, which is generating high income for the Lebanese, who are struggling to cope with the worst crisis their country has ever seen.
Contacted by This Is Beirut, the Director General of the Ministry of Economy Mohammad Abou Haidar explains that large quantities of bovine intestines, or what are commonly known as guts, are being exported for the first year to the European Union for the modest sum of 30 million euros annually.
“This is a significant and remarkable export figure for a single year, especially as 1,200 Lebanese families make their living from this trade,” Abou Haidar points out.
He added, “We must do everything we can to facilitate exports for Lebanese manufacturers and help them maintain quality, because they are injecting dollars into the Lebanese economy, which is in great need of foreign currency.”
Casings from Lebanon are mostly used in Europe to wrap sausages and medical threads.
Chicken feet
In the same context, it seems that Lebanese chicken feet are enjoying the same success. They are one of Lebanon’s most important exports to China, where they are consumed in huge quantities. They are used in Chinese starters or serve as an aperitif.
This is, if we may say so, one of the positive aspects of the crisis, which has encouraged the Lebanese, in search of foreign currency, to develop new products to be marketed abroad.
Abou Haidar said the trade was facilitated by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Economic Attaché at the Lebanese Embassy in Belgium.
“Both have made, and continue to make, considerable efforts to ensure that the product meets the required European standards,” Abou Haidar said, hoping that Lebanese honey will enjoy the same success and will soon be exported to EU countries.
He pointed out that Lebanon’s exports to the EU totaled around 600 million euros in 2022, a record in Lebanon’s exports to the European zone which started in 2002.
