During a visit to Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade Abu-Ghazaleh: Lebanon will never become an oil-producer country; it must secure its food and medicine supplies locally
BEIRUT – Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade, HE Mr. Amin Salam, received in his office HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, founder and chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global (TAG.Global), and his accompanying delegation. The meeting was held in the presence of the Ministry’s Director General, Dr. Mohamad Abou Haidar, to discuss a number of local and international issues.
During the meeting, attended by the MENA EdTech Alliance President, Dr. Rabie Baalbaki, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh expressed his belief in the competencies and potentials of Lebanon in addition to its vital geographical factors, and the diverse natural and human resources it enjoys. He further affirmed the need to develop the pharmaceutical and food industry locally to ensure self-sufficiency and move toward applying the digital transformation plan embraced by the Lebanese government to improve the public sector performance.
In the same context, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh declared readiness to establish a factory in Lebanon to manufacture and produce technological devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones to be used for educational purposes in cooperation with Talal Abu-Ghazaleh for Technology (TAGTech). This is to supply Lebanon's domestic market with the required quantities of these devices, as well as to start exporting them from Lebanon to the world.
Concerning the maritime border demarcation agreement with the Zionist enemy, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh said, “Lebanon will not become an oil country as Israel has never been committed to any agreement throughout its history, and will not allow Lebanon to extract oil and gas.” Therefore, he went on to add that Lebanon should take immediate actions to emerge from the crisis instead of waiting for extracting oil, which will take many long years to be extracted.
On the other hand, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh called on the Lebanese government to establish an oil and gas independent authority with full jurisdiction, similar to the Central Bank of Lebanon.
For his part, Minister Salam reviewed the Ministry's plans for securing self-sufficiency, consumer protection, promoting national production, and opening up competition that improves the quality and prices of services provided to citizens to prevent monopoly.
In conclusion, the two parties agreed to contribute to supporting the existing projects between TAG.Global and its partners, especially in the areas of knowledge, economy and digital transformation.