Trading with the World on a Barter Basis and How It Can Save us

I’m no expert, but, I’ve spent my whole professional career as a journalist specializing in business, finance and economic reporting for a leading business magazine in Lebanon listening to the so-called experts and professionals in finance and economic prognostication. I have found that being an expert doesn’t mean you are always informed or honest. Yes, they lied to us! And as a result, we are here, at the eye of the perfect storm of shit: Economic and financial collapse and pandemic restrictions mixed in with government formation paralysis. If you were to design a perfect shit storm you couldn’t do a better job than this. But, the crisis has exposed many weaknesses and we have learned many useful lessons as a result. One of those lessons is to not have a dollarized economy! Duh! am I right!? And yet, this fact was neither self-evident a few years ago nor was it given much credence or taken seriously. Back then we favored financial engineering by our internationally lauded central bank governor, the golden boy of our financial world, life without dollars seemed unimaginable. Well, it’s all changed now, hasn’t it!

 

Imagine a locked down couple in London ordering a bottle of Lebanese wine from their local supermarket, its delivered to their door step, they take out the bottle and raise it up to meet a lonely beam of mid-day sunlight that managed to sneak through the clouds into their sitting room, the purple red liquid picks up the sunlight and give of sunset hues, a bottle of Mediterranean sunshine bringing badly needed cheer in to a London apartment! How welcome would that bottle be?! I wish the Lebanese would get it through their thick skulls that we are not penniless, destitute, hopeless, or resource poor, that we needn’t get out or begging bowls because we have a lot of product that the world wants. Luckily, we are in a locked down world sitting at home eating and drinking and those are the things that we make best in Lebanon: food and drink!

 

Just recently, our government extolled the huge value the country derived from a barter deal with the Iraqi government. In return for supplying us with their heavy fuel oil of which they have a surplus and which our outdated power plants still burn, sadly; the Lebanese government would pay the Iraqi government in fresh produce and processed food products, from jams and preserves to cheeses and dairy, fruits and vegetables. This is a landmark deal that actually saves us paying precious dollars for fuel to generate electricity, and we are not getting another handout or making another crooked deal in which cash in exchanged and some of it, as always, goes astray. This time, we got it right, we give what we have, what we grow and process and manufacture, most importantly, what other countries really want, and in return other countries supply us with what we really need, be it medicines, vaccines, car parts, baby formula, anything! The good thing about the barter economy is it bypasses the need for the exchange of currency, and often the currency of choice as an internationally accepted medium of exchange is the US dollars, which also makes us vulnerable to the US financial system’s manipulations, which has increasingly used its power to sanction and control global finance and trade to punish countries that refuse to comply with its unpopular political agenda.

Make it and they will buy it, should be our new maxim. Our one concern in fact should be not making enough to meet global demand. One case in point is Lebanese wine, a success story, a high-quality product that has invaded the supermarket shelves of the world and who’s reputation remains stellar and pristine. Likewise, other sectors of our agri-food industry have huge potential, all that is needed is improved quality control, increased productivity and more efficient manufacturing as well as a streamlined transportation network to ensure exportation abroad on time. 

 

Fresh produce typically needs to be on shelves within 48 hours. That is possible by air. What is needed in Lebanon is a dedicated cargo airport. Ideally, we have such an airport, it’s the Rayak Military base and airport. Let’s face it, the military doesn’t really need it, we don’t have a fixed wing air force to speak of, but Rayak is precious as it is mostly unused flat real estate in a mountainous country, ideally situated in our bread basket, the Bekaa valley where much of our produce is grown. It wouldn’t need much upgrade either, maybe lengthen the runway a bit, build some refrigerated warehouses and hangars and you are in business! This is just one example of the top of my head.

 

Railways transport cargo more efficiently and in a timelier manner than trucks do. One rail link from the port of Tripoli overland into Syria linking up with the Syrian railway network and you can move goods to Iraq. Iraq can start using Tripoli as an importation route from Europe one that crucially bypasses the Suez Canal, the pirate-riddled Horn of Africa and the Strait of Hormuz! How much would the Iraqis save in cost of transport and insurance, and the added business for Tripoli will trickle down to benefit the middle classes and poor of the city who will find gainful employment at the newly expanded port facility. I wager that after such an expansion of port and transport facilities you wouldn’t see one willing protestor on the streets of that much suffering northern city!

 

If a good-for-nothing unemployed fire brand radical idiot like me can think of these practical and rational solutions for our economic malaise, then it’s worth asking yourself, why haven’t the idiots in government thought of such solutions, and if they have, why haven’t they done anything about it. One possible answer is that those in power benefit too much from the inefficient old rentier dollarized economy and have no real incentive to give our country a prosperous productive economy that raises the whole country from poverty and destitution.

 

There is no way out of our present hole than to build and augment a productive economy that replaces the old rentier consumptive economy of post-civil war Lebanon. We have to make more! Expand the area of cultivated land, adopt more efficient farming methods. We are an extraordinarily versatile country that has deep cultural roots in agriculture. They say our soil can grow anything, I don’t know how true that is, but I do know that in addition to a wide range of citrus fruit, we have several soft fruit seasons in the spring and summer, such fruits can benefit hugely from timely refrigerated transport. Potentially, there is a huge market for Lebanese fresh produce, all we need to ensure is quality, consistency and timely delivery so the end user can appreciate our unique produce and its flavor.

 

We already have a developed specialized cottage industry in dairy cheese making and preserves and baked goods, we used to proudly display our goods at local farmers’ markets. If we consolidate these cottage industries into larger cooperatives that ensure the same quality but increase productivity and efficiency, we can start exporting a variety of processed foods to international markets. By selling our goods direct to governments, we can ensure bulk orders, payment can be in goods and products and raw materials that we badly need, not a cent need be exchanged in the whole process! 

 

Eventually, when our agri-industries become globally recognized as much as the Tulip industry in Holland, our much loved Lira can be floated and regain its true value as a medium of exchange, backed not with dollars, but with Lebanese productive muscle!