Industrial machinery
exported to Lebanon

Where a Lebanese consignment comes ashore is a commercial decision rather than a formality. Beirut takes the container traffic, but Tripoli is built for weight: one container berth of 600 m with 15.2 m alongside and a 16 m channel, two super post-panamax gantry cranes, two reachstackers, 124 reefer points, eight conventional berths with roll-on roll-off, and a free zone of 150,000 square metres. Its traffic leans towards construction materials, dry bulk and vehicles, which is the company a press or a crawler machine keeps. For an out-of-gauge or break-bulk lot both repay pricing.

Nobody is opening a credit

Quote cash. A bank here will not confirm a letter of credit unless the importer puts up the whole value as collateral in advance, correspondent lines from abroad have been withdrawn or hedged with conditions, and the economy is largely dollarised and trades on cash and fresh dollar accounts. Cash against documents, or transfer in advance, closes business.

A carve-out worth reading

The 3 per cent additional customs fee brought in by Article 59 of the 2019 Budget Law does not reach industrial equipment, which is excluded alongside fuel and raw materials for manufacturing and agriculture. Value added tax stands at 11 per cent. Both figures sit in the buyer's landed cost rather than ours, but a quotation is easier to defend when it states them.

Exclusivity stopped protecting anyone in 2022

Competition Law 281 of 15 March 2022 removed what an exclusive agent used to rely on. A registered exclusivity binds nobody beyond the two parties, parallel importing is lawful, and the mechanism that let an agent stop a rival shipment at customs has gone. An exclusive appointment is now a contract and not a moat, which should be reflected in what either side is willing to pay for it.

Plant that has to restart on its own

Electricite du Liban delivers power for only a few hours in the day, and effectively every industrial site covers the gap with diesel generating sets. Equipment has to survive repeated restarts and voltage dips without someone attending to it, so control behaviour when the supply returns, and restart sequencing on compressors and pumps, are specification questions here rather than afterthoughts. Generating-set packages are themselves an active line of business in this market. Nominal supply is 220 V at 50 Hz, and sockets are mixed to an unusual degree, with Types A, B, C, D and G all in use, so a fixed electrical connection terminated on site suits anything substantial.

Certificates, brokers and state buyers

The Verification of Conformity scheme that the Industrial Research Institute has operated since August 2004 does not extend to industrial machinery. Its Annex 1 lists consumer and low-voltage electrical goods: toys, household and kitchen appliances, audio-video equipment, lamps, batteries, tiles, paints, detergents and portable fire extinguishers. Processing lines, refrigeration plant, construction plant and power-generation equipment are absent, and no institute certificate falls due for them. LIBNOR writes standards, and the great majority remain voluntary unless a decree makes one binding. Arabic is the official language of Lebanese Customs and a licensed broker lodges the entry, while Arabic, French and English commercial papers are all taken in practice. Public buying was reformed by Public Procurement Law 244/2021, which replaced the old Accounting Law arrangements; the Public Procurement Authority at ppa.gov.lb announces tenders, and Article 109 obliges publication on its central electronic platform. Whether warranty, installation, training or ongoing parts supply apply is decided by the supply contract, and each is quoted with the machines. Any duty to install, to train or to make good under warranty has to be written into the purchase terms to exist at all.