Lebanon’s fuel price hike set to worsen living conditions
Lebanon’s government raised the price of fuel on Wednesday by about 25 per cent, the National News Agency reported, effectively removing all subsidies on fuel products and pricing them at market rate amid a worsening economic crisis.
The new increase brings the price of 20 litres of 98-octane gasoline to 312,700 Lebanese pounds — almost half the monthly minimum wage. The spike also affects cooking gas and diesel fuel used for heating, portending a chilly winter ahead.
“Effectively, the subsidies have been removed from fuel in a final manner,” said Georges Brax, a spokesman for the Syndicate of Petrol Station Owners in Lebanon. He said the new prices were calculated at the black-market rate.
“There are no more subsidies from the central bank or the state coffers,” he said, adding that world fuel prices have also been rising, impacting the pricing in Lebanon.
The increase sparked limited protests in Beirut, southern and northern Lebanon and calls for an increase in the minimum wage. Living conditions continue to deteriorate in Lebanon as the tiny country, once a middle-income nation, slides further into an economic crisis that has already driven over half of the population into poverty.
A government plan for a social
safety net has yet to materialise in the country, which is now dependent on international financial assistance.
Lebanon, a country of 6 million people including Syrian refugees, has been grappling with shortages of fuel, medicine and basic goods as foreign reserves dwindle and the economy contracts. The national currency has been in free fall, losing more than 90 per cent of its
value. A new government took office last month after nearly a year of political deadlock that only aggravated the economic crisis, described by the World Bank as one of the world’s worst in the last 150 years.
Over the last few weeks, the government has gradually lifted subsidies, bringing the prices closer to market rates. —