Xinhua, Beirut :
Visiting World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday that he will work with Lebanese officials on economic reforms to support Lebanon’s economy, which has been strained by the recent waves of Syrian refugees to the country.
“We are here today to reaffirm our support for this country at these difficult circumstances. We are here to thank this country for its generosity in hosting the Syrian refugees,” Kim told reporters at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport after arriving from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
During his two-day visit, Kim plans to meet with a number of government officials for talks on the challenges facing the Lebanese economy. Kim is the first World Bank president to have visited Lebanon in fourteen years. His visit comes as the Middle Eastern nation has repeatedly called on the international community to help its struggling economy cope with the effects of a worsening Syrian refugee crisis caused by its neighbor’s three-year-old civil war.
The World Bank president along with other experts will examine Lebanon’s economy and the everyday living conditions in the country.
Lebanese Minister of Economy Alain Hakim said that the World Bank delegation will focus mainly on “the repercussions of the Syrian refugee issue on Lebanon (while) coordinating a plan that would tackle the electricity sector, water and renewable energy.”
Kim said prior to his arrival that the direct losses Lebanon incurred due to the Syrian crisis are estimated at about 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, in addition to a nearly three-percent annual drop of the gross domestic product between 2012 and 2014, as well as an unemployment rate as high as 20 percent.
