At the same time, local agricultural producers and breeders of animals for slaughter are generally going through a crisis that is considered “acute”, as they are prevented from competing in the market with imported products, which, under a “Covid facility” are exempt from customs fees. The importers are mostly foreigners (Lebanese, in particular), in general with connections to personalities of the regime.

Groups linked to the regime, whose activities are increasingly diversified, proposed to buy from private producers/breeders the productions that they are unable to sell, but offering prices considered to be predatory. The producers' crisis, which prevents them from honoring their commitments to the banks, and the foreign exchange withdrawals that the BNA is obliged to owe due to direct adjustments, are considered an additional factor in the state of undercapitalization in which the bank finds itself (AM 1391). READ MORE