Lebanon has long been under a massive bread crisis, with prices rising as high as 50,000 LBP on the black market and people queuing outside bakeries for hours to get their hands on the limited supply of still subsidized bread.
Minister of Economy and Trade, Amin Salam, now says that 90% of the bread crisis is over.
This statement comes after the formation of a new committee to undertake the problems of the bread crisis and is based on a field survey in all Lebanese regions. The survey concluded that 90% of bakery queues had disappeared throughout the country.
“The new mechanism has put an end to the crisis dealers, and the owners of a number of bakeries and mills that violate the decisions of the Ministry of Economy have been arrested, and they are under investigation by the concerned judiciary,” Salam reported to local news.
As if the economic crisis in Lebanon and the over 90 percent devaluation of the Lebanese Pound (LBP) during the past three years haven’t been hard enough, the war in Ukraine has also affected the Lebanese import of wheat and flour.
Many of the wheat and flour used in Lebanon comes from Ukraine, but importation has not been possible in the same amount lately, as Ukrainian ships have been blocked since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as tweeted by the Ukrainian Embassy in Lebanon.
The first Ukrainian grain ship in five months has set sail from Odesa for Lebanon on Monday, August 1st, under a safe passage agreement.
