“The Executive Board of the World Food Program decided, at its last meeting in Rome, to allocate an amount of 5 billion and 400 million dollars to Lebanon for the next three years, with a promise that the products purchased for the purpose of food aid will be entirely from Lebanon,” Mikati said.

Mikati's statement came in the wake of a meeting he held Monday with WFP Director in Lebanon, Dr. Abdullah Al-Wardat.

Al-Wardat said that he had informed Mikati about the WFP Executive Board’s approval of the WFP project in Lebanon for the years 2023-2025.

Al Wardat said that” the project will provide and will continue to provide emergency aid, as well as in-kind and cash assistance to the beneficiaries of this program.

“The agency will continue to provide cash assistance to a number of refugees; we are talking about one million Syrian refugees and one million Lebanese who will benefit from this project,” he added.

According to a World Bank report, Lebanon's economy which was structurally strained before the Syrian shock suffered a real blow as the aftermath of the Syrian crisis, which brought around 1.5 million Syrian refugees into Lebanon.

The GDP growth rate declined to around 1 percent in 2018.

The already battered economy of Lebanon suffered a fresh blow with the port blast on 4 August 2020.

Economists claimed that the blasts could result in the contraction of Beirut's GDP by around 20–25% for the year. (ILKHA)