According to the Lebanese Customs, Port of Beirut (PoB) was the main trading hub of the country in 2015 as 72% of the imports and 52% of the exports passed through its customs office. PoB was closely followed by the customs’ office of Rafic Hariri International Airport that grasped 19% of Lebanon’s imports and 28% of its exports. Tripoli’s customs office ranked third in terms of total trade value with imports recording $1.01B in 2015 (or 9% of the total) and that of exports registering $257.33M (or 6% of the total) for the same period.
Given its renowned importance for land trading, it is worth noting that the value of total exports through Masnaa’s customs office has substantially dropped from $737.73M in 2014 to $275.02M in 2015. This has triggered down the total volume of exports from 572,336 tons in 2014 to 172,398 tons in 2015. The following mainly resulted from the ongoing war in Syria and the rebels’ seizure of the Nassib border crossing between Syria and Jordan. Also, each of the value and the volume of imports through the Masnaa’s customs office plummeted by almost 60%, by the end of 2015, to $202.06M and 96,580 tons, respectively.
Imports by Customs’ Office, Share in Total
Exports by Customs’ Office, Share in Total
Source: Customs