“Without looking back”: As the economy collapses, Lebanese turn to Cyprus Business and Economics

Nicosia / Larnaca, Cyprus – Pierre Sarkis pulls a cigarette out of the window while watching the rain in the capital Nicosia. Life has not been particularly easy since he left Lebanon in the midst of the crisis in mid-September, but the 35-year-old has firmly settled on the small island.

“I don’t look back. I know I have run out of opportunities in Lebanon, ”he said.

Sarkis is among the 77,000 Lebanese who have left the country for lack of money last year, according to research firm Information International. About 12,000 of them have gone to Cyprus, 70 percent of whom are between 25 and 40 years old, Mohammad Chamesddine, a political and research specialist at the company, told Al Jazeera.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Lebanese would like to leave the country permanently if their living conditions worsen. Some have chosen to travel by sea to Cyprus and other European countries. A Lebanese man at a refugee reception center in Cyprus, who asked to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera that he and his family were at risk because they could not afford basic expenses for their children.

“There is no labor market in Lebanon,” Chameseddin said. “So when students finish college, they have a chance to emigrate or stay and be unemployed.”

Sarkis, who worked in corporate home sales before losing her job, was one of the last of her group of friends to leave Lebanon. A also stayed after a devastating explosion in the port of Beirut It killed more than 200 people last year, injured another 6,500 and destroyed several neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital, which also shook his home.

But Sarkis said one electricity and fuel crisis last year was the last straw.

“When I didn’t even have a job interview because of all the power outages or going to a meeting because of the gas crisis, I knew they had shut this door shut,” he recalls. “And when we didn’t have electricity for 24 hours, and I had to throw everything that thawed in the freezer, I said ‘that’s it.’

In just over two years, the Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 percent of its value, and three-quarters of the population has fallen into poverty.

Last summer, Lebanese authorities began to slowly raise expensive subsidies for diesel and gasoline. But without a plan to revive the economy, social security networks or effective legal oversight, fuel shortages halted much of public life, even more so. fighting hospitals to keep the lights on. Gas station owners and fuel distributors accumulated their shares to sell at a higher profit, and black market sellers sold their shares at extra high prices.

“I would pray that when I receive a call for a job interview, my phone will have enough battery power during the meeting,” Sarkis recalled, who had to sell his car and other things to go to Cyprus. one of his grandparents allowed him to go there with great ease.

“If you live in Lebanon now, you’re going crazy.”

Reduce Cyprus losses

In an 80-year-old building behind St. Lazarus Church, 45-year-old architect Rani al-Rajji and 27-year-old Elias Khalife are in a hurry to put the finishing touches on a new Larnaca recreation project that has been under construction for years. Experience working in the Lebanese food and beverage industry.

Soul will open in March, and its Lebanese owners hope to bring the flavor of Beirut’s nightlife to Larnaca. [Kareem Chehayeb/Al Jazeera]

“It’s not a bar, it’s not a restaurant, it’s not a cafe, it’s not a club; that’s a little bit of them, “said al-Rajji, referring to a total of five Lebanese partners and two Cypriots. “The soul has a name.”

Both al-Rajji and Khalif have popular restaurants and bars in Lebanon. But the financial crisis and the ongoing brain drain have made it a herculean task to sustain their businesses.

“The place in Beirut is still in operation, but I don’t know until when, especially because we are losing our younger customers,” al-Rajji said. “I know that in the next three, four or five years I will not be able to survive on my own resources. We lost our ‘rainy days’ at the bank.’

In August 2019, Lebanese banks began to hold back foreign currency withdrawals due to a shortage of hard currencies. The move led to the evaporation of the savings of millions of people, decimating what was left of the Lebanese middle class. Today, these withdrawals can be made with a slightly inflated Lebanese pound, but still with a significant loss.

Meanwhile, as a result of the electricity and fuel crisis, business costs have risen, as many are already struggling to maintain the situation in Lebanon. food inflation, one of the worst in the world.

Khalif, a partner in the three businesses that destroyed the Beirut port blast, said Soule would act like a “pig box” for plans to return home.

“You can’t plan things properly. You would say that one day there will be no fuel, so you can’t have electricity or water, ”Khalif said. “We brought our little generator. The customers were first entertained and photographed, but that was it. ”

Everything that would become soul was the first three stores. But the new company will retain the old architecture with its beautiful stone arches, as well as the metal shutters in the shops that are used as the front of the bar. “We are not here to change Cyprus, but we are here to add some Lebanese species,” al-Rajji said with a smile.

But he is well aware that Soul’s success is crucial to the return of Beirut to the 12 employees who work at his award-winning bar in Brazzaville. “I had to create hope, so I had to create an antenna to inject some money into the institution to keep it alive,” he said. “I don’t want them to leave.”

Over the past 10 years, foreign shipments have been a critical artery for the Lebanese economy, as it has no viable productive sector.

In fact, Chamesddine, of Information International, said the shipments have kept Lebanon at bay. It is estimated that 250,000 Lebanese families rely on them to survive.

Karim Abou Jamra shows a tattoo of a map of Cyprus [Kareem Chehayeb/Al Jazeera]

“If it weren’t for those shipments, the economy would be in a much worse place,” he said. “Officially they make about $ 6-7 million a year, but I think it could be $ 13 billion, mostly because a lot of people have been bringing in money lately, instead of wiring from banks.”

It takes less than an hour to fly from Larnaca to Beirut. While many Lebanese young people in Cyprus are visiting families on holiday, they are dealing with mixed feelings.

Among them is 22-year-old Karim Abou Jamra, who left Lebanon four years ago to study business in Cyprus. He always hoped to return home and work in the family business, but now he has thoughts of the economic crisis after shaking Lebanon.

“I was really depressed when everything happened as if I was going to lose someone,” Abou Jamra said. “Maybe in the future, if things get better, I’ll try again, but for now, there’s nothing.”

Abou Jamra takes the bag and goes to the terminal. He misses his family, but this time he says he is different. He shows a tattoo of a map of Cyprus as he lifts his forearm. “I would love to have a life in Lebanon. I really enjoyed that place.”

Meanwhile, in Larnaca, al-Rajji is preparing to take his family to Cyprus for the launch of Soul Spring. He says he has met more and more Lebanese people in the city of Cyprus and finds it “sad” that Lebanon’s brain drain is continuing.

“Lebanon has always been exporting human resources because we have no other natural resources to export,” al-Rajji said. “But unfortunately, in the last 30 years, it has become an industry.”

As for Sarkis, he hopes to reunite with his older brother Cyprus and their mother in January. She is also waiting for her boyfriend and has promised to start a new chapter with him on the island.

“I’m 35 and I think I’ll live to be 70,” he said with a laugh. “I spent half my life in Lebanon, but after all this, I think it’s fair to live the other half of my life better.”