Iraq's post-war reconstruction has been a real bonanza for Lebanese ports, which have seen activity nearly double, in a reminder of their former commercial glory.
The country's harbors on the eastern Mediterranean, mainly at the northern city of Tripoli, have become beehives since the April 9 fall of the Saddam Hussein regime to the US-led coalition now ruling the country.
The ports' activities have been on the rise since the beginning of the summer, with a 22 percent increase of activities at the Beirut port last month from a year earlier.
A record rise of 42 percent was recorded in October in the northern harbor of Tripoli, the closest to Baghdad, a port official told reporters.
Transit is the main activity at the Tripoli port. To face the growing demand, authorities have allocated about US$25 million to expand the harbor.
New cars, trucks, wood and fertilizer crowd the port of Tripoli from where the freight is mainly taken to Baghdad, about 1,000km across the arid Syrian plains and the Iraqi desert.
"Every month, some 5,000 cars are transported to Iraq," said the port official, who did not wish to be identified.
The Lebanese economy, which has been in crisis for years, is benefitting not only from the re-export activities, but from a rising demand for local industrial products, mostly cement.
"Last year, it used to take me less than one hour to drive to my native village of Baino ... Today, it takes me half an hour more because of the never-ending traffic of lorries carrying all sorts of products, mainly cars, toward the Syrian borders," Tripoli resident Ilham Salem told reporters.
Hundreds of cars are transported by land on double-platform lorries, owned by Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian companies benefitting from a post-war tax break.
Cranes work non-stop, unloading ships and filling up lorries with.
"As far as any taxi driver can remember, this is the largest flow of lorries," recalls George Sayegh, who has long been shuttling along the Beirut-Aleppo roadway.
Port authorities said activities have been on the rise for the past three months and are due to continue their upward trend in the next few years due to the enormous needs of the Iraqi market.
Previously, activity at the Tripoli port rarely reached 500,000 tonnes. But it rose by 23.6 percent to 711,900 tonnes in the first 10 months of this year from 575,600 tonnes in the year-earlier period.
Demand has been on the rise for many products. For example, demand for wood doubled in November to 20,000 tonnes from the months before the US-led invasion of Iraq last spring.
Such a rush for quick earnings through re-export activities has also meant a shortage of many products on the Lebanese internal market.
"Clients are calling us liars, but it is a first: we cannot meet our own needs in wood to satisfy them," explained carpenter Dawud.
Lebanese cement is also heavily in demand because of difficulties suffered by cement factories in Iraq, mainly due to power shortages, said Bashir Ashou, owner a construction firm and one of the leading transportation companies in the country.
After a halt of 15 years, cement exports from Lebanon to Iraq progressively increased to reach 68,000 tonnes over six weeks for the country's two factories.
"This situation is unprecedented," said Ashou, who said Iraq is also resorting to Syria to meet a gigantic demand of 25 million tonnes of cement per year.
THREATS: Naval facilities have been built in Shanghai and Zhejiang, while airbases have been expanded in Xiamen, Fuzhou and Zhangpu, across the Strait from Taiwan The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building large-scale military infrastructure at five sites along the eastern coast of China, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a recent report. The latest issue of the council’s Mainland China Situation Quarterly said satellite photos showed military infrastructure such as air force and naval bases being constructed along the eastern coast of China. That means the CCP might be preparing for potential conflict in Taiwan, it said, adding that there are five such construction sites from north to south. A naval base has been built in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, with underground oil storage tanks, railway
MILESTONE: The foreign minister called the signing ‘a major step forward in US-Taiwan relations,’ while the Presidential Office said it was a symbol of the nations’ shared values US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the state department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct a review “not less than every five years.” It must then submit an updated report based on its findings “not later
A trial run of the north concourse of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s new Terminal 3 is to commence today, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The eight additional boarding gates would allow for more aircraft parking spaces that are expected to boost the airport’s capacity by 5.8 million passengers annually, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Kuo-shian (林國顯) said. The concourse, designed by a team led by British architect Richard Rogers, provides a refreshing space, Lin said, adding that travelers would enjoy the tall and transparent design that allows sunshine to stream into the concourse through glass curtain walls. The
The Presidential Office today thanked the US for enacting the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law, signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday, is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct such a review "not less than every five years." It must then submit an updated
RSS