Food Processing Equipment Line Machines Plants in Lebanon

Price a Lebanese order on cash terms. A confirmed letter of credit is not a realistic instrument here, and a deal built around one will stall before the technical discussion.

Payment

Banks will not confirm an LC unless the importer posts the full value as cash collateral in advance, correspondent banks abroad have cut or heavily conditioned their lines to Lebanese institutions, and the economy is largely dollarised, running on cash and ‘fresh dollar’ accounts. The workable terms are cash against documents or telegraphic transfer in advance, said early rather than late.

The grid dictates the specification

Électricité du Liban supplies only a few hours a day, and virtually every industrial site runs diesel generating sets for the remainder. Process and cold-storage equipment has to tolerate frequent restarts and voltage dips without a technician resetting it, which affects control behaviour on power return, restart logic on compressors and pumps, and how an inkjet coder recovers mid-batch. Nominal supply is 220 V at 50 Hz, and sockets are unusually mixed — Types A, B, C, D and G all appear — so specify a fixed electrical connection and state the expected supply tolerance.

No conformity certificate for industrial plant

A Verification of Conformity scheme exists but industrial machinery is outside it. The Industrial Research Institute has run it since August 2004 and its Annex 1 scope is consumer and low-voltage electrical goods: toys, household and kitchen appliances, audio-video equipment, power supplies, lamps, batteries, cosmetics, paints, detergents and portable fire extinguishers. Food-processing lines, refrigeration plant, construction plant and power-generation equipment are absent, and no IRI certificate is required for them. LIBNOR writes standards, but most are voluntary unless a decree makes them mandatory.

Ports, duty and agency arrangements

Beirut is the primary container gateway, and the Port of Tripoli is a genuine alternative for heavy and project cargo: a 600 m container berth, 15.2 m draft, two super post-panamax gantry cranes, 124 reefer points, eight conventional berths with RoRo and a 150,000 square metre free zone, its cargo mix leaning to construction materials, dry bulk and vehicles. Industrial equipment is carved out of the 3 per cent additional customs fee introduced by Article 59 of the 2019 Budget Law, alongside fuel and manufacturing and agricultural raw materials; VAT is 11 per cent. Arabic is the official language of Lebanese Customs and a licensed broker lodges the declaration, but Arabic, French and English documents are accepted in practice. Competition Law 281 of 15 March 2022 removed exclusive agency protection: a registered exclusivity no longer binds third parties, parallel imports are lawful and the customs-blocking mechanism was repealed, so appointing an exclusive agent buys contractual rights only. Public buyers work under Public Procurement Law 244/2021, the Public Procurement Authority publishing tenders on the central platform required by Article 109. Any warranty, installation or training obligation arises from the supply contract alone, and we neither stock spares nor provide after-sales service.