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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
Cement was Lebanon's biggest single industrial export in 1980,
accounting for 15.5 percent of industrial exports. Sales to Syria
at that time accounted for about 40 percent of all cement exports.
In early 1981, however, exports to that country came to a complete
standstill because the Syrians, then in the middle of a major
program to construct their own cement works, could not reach
agreement with the two principal Lebanese cement works on the terms
and conditions of cement sales. Thus cement exports to Syria in
1981 totaled only L£34 million, down from L£119 million a year
earlier. Overall cement exports dropped to L£201 million but
recovered to L£227 million in 1982 as alternative export markets
were found. Lebanon's principal cement works in 1982 were situated
in the north, away from the fighting around Beirut, so the industry
could continue exporting by sea from Tripoli and overland by truck.
In early 1983, when the country's political status showed signs
of stabilizing, the Lebanese Cement Company (Société des Ciments
Libanaises--SCL) secured a US$36 million syndicated loan to finance
a planned US$79.3 million expansion program. Production was
expected to increase to 250,000 tons a year, and unit costs were
expected to decrease through a change in power supply from oil to
coal (with the company running its own generating stations). The
reported purchase of a 30- percent stake in the company's parent,
Eternit Libanaise, by Prince Abdallah al Faisal, eldest son of the
former king of Saudi Arabia, heightened international confidence in
the industry's prospects.
But Syria's decision to terminate Lebanese cement imports, the
return of instability, and difficulties in finding fresh export
markets destroyed prospects for the revival of the cement industry.
In July 1983, SCL laid off 300 workers at its Shikka works as it
became clear that the industry faced disaster. By the end of 1983,
the scope of the disaster was starkly apparent: total cement
exports amounted to only L£27.5 million--an 88- percent drop from
the 1982 level.
In the early 1980s, the Jumblatt family established the Siblin
Cement Company, building a factory near Sidon to provide cement for
the local construction industry. The Siblin plant, built with
Romanian technical assistance and with a production capacity of
300,000 tons per year, was formally opened just before the Israeli
invasion of June 1982. The plant was badly damaged during the
fighting, and it was not until 1986 that work to get the plant back
into commission could begin in earnest. A fresh injection of L£15
million in capital from local entrepreneur Rafiq Hariri made the
company Lebanon's largest shareholding venture.
Data as of December 1987
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