BEIRUT (Archyde.com) – Lebanon’s Economy Minister Amin Salam told Archyde.com on Monday that the World Bank had approved a $150 million loan to finance the country’s wheat imports and maintain stable bread prices for nine months.
Salam added that the project, which is called “Emergency Response to Wheat Supplies to Lebanon”, still needs the approval of the Council of Ministers and Parliament.
A World Bank spokesperson said the loan aims to “finance immediate wheat imports to avoid any short-term disruption in supply, and help secure affordable bread for the poor and needy families, including … the refugees in Lebanon.”
Lebanon is highly dependent on food imports, which are paid for in dollars, which are now hard to come by since the economic collapse of 2019.
Since then, the Lebanese pound has lost regarding 90 percent of its value, while food prices have increased by more than 11-fold, according to data from the United Nations World Food Programme.
The bread shortage has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which supplies most of Lebanon’s wheat needs, and Beirut’s inability to store wheat reserves since the destruction of its largest silos in the Beirut port explosion in 2020.
