by Dana Halawi

BEIRUT, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Nationwide protests over the past 11 days in Lebanon had a huge impact on the Lebanese economy, experts said.

"My estimations for daily losses caused by protests are valued at between 85 million U.S. dollars and 100 million dollars taking into consideration that the economy is active at a rate of 50 percent," Adnan Rammal, representative of the trade sector in the Economic and Social Council, told Xinhua.

Rammal explained that every day of complete paralysis in the country costs around 170 million dollars.

He also noted that companies have not been working normally in the past days, leading to a shortage in liquidity which will disable most of them from paying their dues to suppliers and the salaries of their employees.

"Most merchants may not have enough money to inject in their accounts to cover the cheques that they had given to their suppliers, not to forget that banks are closed and people cannot exchange their cheques for money," he said.

However, Rammal explained that the decision of shutting banks down during such a crisis is the best solution because people are panicking about the country's capacity to maintain a stable exchange rate for the Lebanese pound versus the U.S. dollar.

"Also, some people may resort to withdrawing their money from banks. This is why the loss from closing banks is much less than that of allowing banks to operate normally for the time being," he said.

The increased demand for dollar has created a parallel market in which 1 U.S. dollar is sold at over 1,600 Lebanese pounds which is higher than the official exchange rate.

Despite a circular issued by the Central Bank of Lebanon to supply basic commodities' importers with U.S. dollar for their imports, this problem was not completely solved but it has expanded to other sectors such as travel agencies.

Jean Abboud, head of the syndicate of travel agencies owners, said that a big number of travel agencies are threatened to close because of their inability to secure enough dollars to be paid to International Air Transport Association (IATA) by the middle of each month.

"If travel agencies do not pay their dues to IATA on time, they will be out of the system and be forced to shut down," he said.

While the shortage in U.S. dollar started before protests, the problem grew more seriously after the demonstrations.

Over a million Lebanese nationals have been protesting in Lebanon for the past 11 days by blocking roads and burning tires which paralyzed the country.

Protests came after the government decided to add more taxes on citizens within the framework of the reform measures adopted by officials to reduce deficit in the 2020 budget instead of resorting to other kinds of reforms that would not affect citizens such as the fight against corruption, tax and customs evasion, smuggling and many more.

This has prompted Lebanese all over Lebanon to take to the streets while calling for the mass resignation of the president, ministers and MPs.

In support for this demand, Lebanese expatriates residing in foreign countries organized protests in support of their peers in Lebanon.

Some expatriates even took flights to Lebanon to participate in protests with some news agencies circulating videos of expats chanting the Lebanese national anthem on their way to the country.

Moreover, upon the start of the protests, an increased number of foreign tourists were seen at Beirut's airport leaving the country after warnings by their embassies about the sensitive situation in Lebanon.

For his part, Rammal believes that if no positive political change happens in the country, this will lead to a lack of confidence in the local financial markets with people withdrawing their money or transferring them to other countries.

He added that there will also be no investments which will trigger a disaster in the country. Enditem

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