Lebanon sinks further into crisis
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The World Bank has declared Lebanon's to be "enduring a severe and prolonged economic depression" and said it is one of the worst economic crises since the mid-19th century. As fuel and food supplies dry up, and cash reserves dwindle, Lebanese economic columnist and former bank executive Dan Azzi warns "Armageddon" could be just around the corner for the country. Meanwhile Diana Menhem, economist and managing director of advocacy group Kulluna Irada, explains how the country's economic got into such a state. And we'll also hear from Joumana Saddi Chaya, of the lighting design and manufacturing company PSLab and Aline Kamakian, owner of the restaurant Mayrig in Beirut, on trying to run different businesses amid the increasing chaos.
Producer: Frey Lindsay
(Picture: People queue with their cars to buy fuel in Beirut, Lebanon on June 01, 2021. Picture credit: Wassim Samih Seifeddine/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. |
| 0:03.7 | Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.0 | Today, the World Bank says Lebanon's facing one of the worst economic crises of modern times. |
| 0:12.3 | What's gone wrong? |
| 0:13.5 | You don't have a banking system. |
| 0:15.3 | You have to pay everything cash. |
| 0:17.0 | You have to buy a bit of cash. |
| 0:19.6 | We don't trust the bank. |
| 0:24.2 | Even to pay my website, I have to call my brother outside the country, please pay my website because I cannot transfer any money. |
| 0:29.2 | Ten months after the horrific Beirut bomb blast, nobody is taking any blame. The country doesn't |
| 0:35.8 | even have a government. Can it survive? |
| 0:38.3 | What bothers me about the whole thing is that it's avoidable. |
| 0:42.1 | You know what I mean? |
| 0:42.4 | Like some problems are just not avoidable. |
| 0:44.1 | This is an avoidable one. |
| 0:45.4 | The problem is virtual, theoretical. |
| 0:47.7 | This is sort of the tragedy of the whole thing. |
| 0:49.9 | Lebanon's economic tragedy. |
| 0:51.5 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:07.2 | So I'm at Carfour supermarket in Beirwood. Usually it would be really populated, yet it's almost empty. And people who are already here almost have the carts empty. |
| 1:12.5 | The words there of Tala Ramadan, she's a local Lebanese journalist, |
| 1:17.0 | and to give us a sense of the crisis in her home city, Beirut, |
... |
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