A decision last Wednesday to close all restaurants across Lebanon as part of measures to limit the spread of coronavirus in the country seriously places this sector at risk, particularly that restaurants are already suffering from the country’s economic crisis.
Between September 2019 and February 2020, the number of restaurants and cafes that closed in Lebanon reached almost 800. The month of January alone witnessed the closing of 240 institutions. Meanwhile, more than 25,000 employees were laid off.
According to Information International, the restaurant sector generates $5 billion every year and it constitutes 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The coronavirus crisis came to send a deathblow to the restaurant sector,” said Maya Bekhazi Noun, general secretary of the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Nightclubs, Cafes, and Patisseries.
Noun told Asharq Al-Awsat that before last September, the sector employed 150,000 workers, who are now at risk.
She said before the coronavirus crisis, restaurants were already suffering from several changes due to the political and economic instability in the country.
“Until now, we cannot determine for how long restaurants will remain closed or what would be the direct economic and financial repercussions of such a decision,” Noun explained.
Sources at the Tourism Ministry told Asharq Al-Awsat that in order to contain the virus outbreak in Lebanon, it is essential that restaurants remain closed, even if such a decision would engender dire economic consequences.
“Disease has worse repercussions on the Lebanese than an economic deterioration,” the sources said, adding that the ministry would update its assessments regarding the closure of several sectors on a weekly basis, based on the authorities’ capacity to contain the virus.
