Ports and Customs offices
will open on weekends

To speed activity and lower cost

The Director General of Customs will sign a decision to open ports and Customs offices during weekends. The decision will be effective once signed.

Amer Kaissi, Chairman of the Freight Forwarders Syndicate, said: “This decision reduces congestion at the Port of Beirut (PoB) and lower cost to forwarders.” Customs offices currently are open Monday to Friday.

The same Customs employees will be working during the weekend, according to Badri Daher, General Director of Customs.

PoB is suffering from congestion due to shortage in storage space resulting in higher cost to merchants.

The port processed 1.3 million Twenty-foot Equivalent (TEUs) containers in 2018, similar to the year before.

Freight forwarders pay additional storage fees on behalf of traders and industrialists if containers remain at the port during the weekend.

Ahmad Tamer, Director General of the Port of Tripoli, said: “We welcome the decision but we believe it is not enough because the ports and Customs offices should be working round the clock like in the rest of the world.”