Lebanon Import Trade Data: $18.12B in 2023, Down 7.07%

Fuel and Gold Together Make Up Over 40% of Imports

Lebanon imported $18.12 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 7.07% from $19.50 billion in 2022. Mineral fuels topped every import category at 27.15% of the total, worth $4.92 billion. State electricity rationing, which lasted three hours a day back in 2010, stretched to more than 20 hours a day by 2022 and 2023, pushing households onto private diesel generators that now supply an estimated 37% of the country's total electricity demand. That generator economy runs almost entirely on imported fuel, since Lebanon has no functioning domestic refinery of its own. Power plants add to the total, buying fuel oil abroad to keep what remains of the national grid running at all. Financing those shipments has been its own challenge. A banking system still working through a severe liquidity crisis makes it harder to arrange the letters of credit and foreign-currency payments that fuel importers rely on. Even a category as essential as electricity generation stays exposed to swings in how much hard currency the country can access at any given time.

Pearls, precious stones, precious metals and jewellery ranked second at 13.92% ($2.52 billion). Gold imports have historically run close to a billion dollars a year, raw material for the more than 1,000 gold workshops and small factories that make up Lebanon's jewelry-manufacturing sector. Much of that imported gold gets shaped into finished pieces and shipped back out, so the category shows up heavily on both sides of Lebanon's trade ledger. Workshops buy raw gold and gemstones from abroad, add the labor that turns them into rings, chains and other finished pieces, then sell much of that output straight back into export markets. That is why the same HS code appears near the top of both Lebanon's import and export lists. Vehicles ranked third at 6.47% ($1.17 billion), largely used and salvage cars bought abroad for repair and resale rather than new cars for the domestic market. Buyers purchase these vehicles cheaply at overseas auctions, often after minor accident or flood damage, and Lebanese garages handle the repair work before the cars move on to buyers elsewhere in the region. Electrical machinery added 4.95% ($897.89 million), and machinery contributed 4.61% ($834.55 million). Pharmaceutical products supplied 3.43% ($621.25 million), iron and steel added 2.47% ($447.20 million), and plastics contributed a nearly identical 2.47% ($446.89 million). Cereals made up 2.22% ($401.90 million), and live animals closed out the top ten at 2.07% ($374.89 million).

China Leads Suppliers, With Greece and Switzerland Close Behind

China supplied 11.52% of Lebanon's imports in 2023, worth $2.09 billion, more than any other single source. Greece ranked second at 9.81% ($1.78 billion). Greece runs some of the largest oil refineries in the eastern Mediterranean, and refined fuel makes up the bulk of what it ships to nearby markets like Lebanon, a pattern that lines up closely with mineral fuels sitting at the top of Lebanon's import categories. Switzerland followed at 9.67% ($1.75 billion), a figure that reflects its position as a global center for refining and trading precious metals, the raw material behind Lebanon's gold-import bill. Together, these top three sources made up 31.00% of total import value.

Turkey took fourth place at 7.61% ($1.38 billion), and Italy added 6.18% ($1.12 billion). United States supplied 4.06% ($735.44 million), and Egypt contributed 3.88% ($703.25 million). Russia added 3.24% ($586.28 million), and Germany supplied 3.17% ($574.07 million). United Arab Emirates closed out the top ten at 2.96% ($535.95 million), a smaller share on the import side than its outsized role as Lebanon's top export destination.

Imports Are Still Below Their Pre-Crisis Level

Lebanon's import total has swung sharply over the past five years. It stood at $19.24 billion in 2019, then collapsed to $11.35 billion in 2020, a drop of more than 40%. Because the country is so dependent on imports, the devaluation of the Lebanese pound had a devastating impact on consumers, who saw food prices rise by 190% in May 2020 alone. That crash coincided with the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, the start of the currency crisis, and the pandemic all landing in the same year. Imports recovered to $13.86 billion in 2021, climbed further to $19.50 billion in 2022, then eased to $18.12 billion in 2023.

Even after that recovery, the 2023 total sits just below where Lebanon stood in 2019. Unlike the export side of Lebanon's trade, which has kept climbing on the back of gold and vehicle re-exports, imports remain tied more closely to what a cash-strapped economy can actually afford to bring in from abroad. Fuel and gold alone account for more than 40% of that spending, leaving less room for everything else Lebanon buys from the rest of the world. Ordinary consumer goods, food, and manufactured products that do not involve re-export compete for whatever import capacity is left once those two categories are covered. That squeeze shows up across the rest of the top-ten list, where no other single category comes close to matching fuel or gold in scale.