@AzarsTweets, as promised, a thread on exports and potential growth on that front 👇 1/
First, let me highlight some facts : leading up to 2015 we had reached $4.6 bn in real exports (the numbers coming from the customs are misleading, they include scrap and a very interesting $600mn in gold we sell to South Africa) 2/
After the closure of the Syrian border, this number plumetted to the current $2.7 bn. Most affected sector was aggro-food which is disproportionately affected by the shipping routes. Another major factor was a decision by Iraq to pull out of the tayssir agreement 3/
Meanwhile effective production costs have gone up, and export costs have gone through the roof (it is more expensive to get a container from a factory in kesrouan to the port in Beirut than it is to get it from Beirut to Barcelona) 4/
So, what remains in exports are relatively higher value added products. Which brings us to the next part of the thread : where do we go from here ? There are 2 main axis that need to be addressed concurrently : import substitution and product development 5/
Import substitution (which is now a reality because of the USD crisis) will improve the bottom line of manufacturers by improving their scale. There is a certain threshold that needs to be attained by manufacturers to become competitive on global markets 6/
Only scale can achieve that, so typically we import less - > we produce more - > we are more competitive - > we export more. Also protecting local manufacturer through proper customs = offset of the high production costs locally. 7/
Product development : this is a broad subject, I will give some insights but a proper policy needs to be multifaceted to including the education sector, defense sector and environment sector. It is a bit deyond the scope of this thread for now 8/
Here are a couple of fronts which should be looked at :
1 - Near-shoring as opposed to outsourcing. We are prime candidates to be partners with Western European firm within this new phenomena. We can supply fast, flexible, high quality, small batch production runs 9/
1 - Near-shoring as opposed to outsourcing. We are prime candidates to be partners with Western European firm within this new phenomena. We can supply fast, flexible, high quality, small batch production runs 9/
2- Diversified complex products : Lebanon is not and should not be a production base for simple high volume products. We excel and become competitive on more multilayered items. 👇 Is a graph done by @LCPSLebanon showing the current exports map. 10/ 
3 - High tech : we need to walk the talk with concrete steps. We need to build specialized industrial parcs that will provide the ecosystem for industrial startups to incubate and develop. It would open up JV opportunities with universities and multinational companies alike 11/
4 - Diaspora centered items : leveraging the 16mn Lebanese should be a no-brainer. But we are hyper local and so items need to be labeled as such to capitalize on that aspect (think "appelation controlle" as they do with cognacs and champagne) 12/
Finally, a note to those who doubt the manufacturing sector can rise to the challenge: we currently produce manufacturing lines for P&G. We supply some of the AI software that runs the BMW logistic department. We produce and sell to the most demanding markets.
We got this.
We got this.
