Lebanon’s labor unions rejected on Tuesday a government proposal to increase the price of subsidized bread and diesel, considering the move as a prelude to fully lifting subsidies on all basic goods.
An increase in the prices of bread and diesel comes as Lebanon’s economic crisis continues to worsen and people lose their purchasing power.
The government is currently considering those cuts as the central bank's foreign currency reserves become increasingly depleted.
Beshara Asmar, the head of the General Labor Union, said that the government’s plan to increase bread prices and raise the price of diesel to LL20,000 per can clearly suggests that subsidies on basic materials would be gradually removed.
He said this move comes in the absence of any economic plan that would recover stolen funds or billions transferred abroad, or protect the money of depositors.
Asmar stressed the need to establish a committee of labor unions and concerned syndicates tasked with studying the prices of bread, fuel and medicine.
On Tuesday, the National Federation of Employee and Worker Unions in Lebanon held the caretaker government of Hassan Diab responsible for a security deterioration that might result from further impoverishment and unemployment.
On Monday, the National News Agency said a large bag of flat bread, previously weighing 900 grams and costing 2,000 Lebanese pounds, would now weigh 930 grams and cost 2,500 pounds, a rise of around 20 percent.
Caretaker Economy Minister Raoul Nehme said the price hike was due to an increase of wheat prices worldwide coupled with the high exchange rate to buy dollars.
Last January, the ministry set the 900-gram bread loaf price at 2,250 Lebanese pounds, also saying the rise was due to a hike in global wheat prices.
