The 2024 budget bill includes new taxes on all sectors, including the industrial sector, which is already lacking the elements of resilience due to the financial and political crises in Lebanon.

"Al Joumhouria" newspaper saw that if the taxes are not amended, the 2024 budget will be a devastating blow to the industrial sector and will clip its wings that carry Lebanese products to the farthest parts of the world.

Despite past successes and entering demanding markets, the industrial sector is currently in a state of confusion, facing a noticeable decline in export volume by the end of this year and preparing for the next phase with concern.

The industrial sector is expected to face significant challenges in 2024. In this context, Vice President of the Lebanese Industrialists Association George Nasrawi, affirmed to the newspaper that the cost of industrial production in Lebanon has returned to previous high levels.

He attributed this to various reasons, including the rise in electricity production costs, adjustments to employee salaries, and export barriers.

"As a result of these factors, some neighboring countries have been able to compete with Lebanese industry, such as Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. These countries have products similar to our industrial products and compete with us in prices, especially since their countries protect them, encourage them, and stand behind them, while we are fought by our country that does not look at the industrial sector as a vital productive sector capable of securing income for the state, we are abandoned and we work and produce individual initiative," he noted.

"If the government proceeds with the 2024 budget bill as it is with its taxes, this means a ruling to kill the industrial sector in terms of exports, to keep the Lebanese industry confined to production to meet the needs of the local market," he went on saying.

"After we were looking forward to the state's protection of the sector and its support in the face of competition that we face from neighboring countries, the new budget project brought us a tax on exports by 5 per thousand," Nasrawi pointed out.

"We are suffering, so how is the situation today with the new taxes in the 2024 budget that aim to completely hit the sector? Add to that, the increase in social security subscriptions, the fees that social security collects, financial taxes, customs on some imports," he said.

Nasrawi emphasized that the obstacles that were placed in front of exports and led to their decline pushed many industrialists to leave Lebanon and transfer their factories abroad even in 2023, fearing an increase in this trend in 2024, i.e., the migration of Lebanese factories outside Lebanon and the closure of others.