An employee tends to plants on a cannabis plantation in the village of Yammouneh, in the eastern Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, on July 23, 2018. (Credit: Joseph Eid/AFP)
This could be a step that helps accelerate the development of Lebanon’s therapeutic cannabis sector, long been seen as a regulated industry with potential to generate a stable source of revenue for the country.
On Monday, Lebanon and Zhonghua Lianchuang International Holding Co., Ltd., a Chinese company headquartered in Hong Kong, signed a $10 million investment agreement at the Grand Serail. Under the deal, Beijing agreed to finance, without direct compensation or conditions, the country's first public laboratory for testing and research in the therapeutic cannabis sector.
The agreement was signed on Lebanon's behalf by the Secretary-General of the Cabinet, Judge Mahmoud Makkieh, acting as government representative. On the Chinese side, it was signed by a representative of Zhonghua Lianchuang International Holding Co., Ltd., according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA), which did not name the individual.
Makkiek had previously been appointed director-general of the Regulatory Authority for the Cultivation of Medical and Industrial Cannabis to ensure the continuity of public service ahead of the body's full establishment a year ago.
Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani said the agreement "opens the door for Lebanon to major international companies, including this Chinese company, to invest in the cannabis and medicinal and aromatic plant sectors." He described it as "a major step for the authority and an important milestone in the journey of Lebanese-Chinese cooperation."
He added that the agreement builds on a Sino-Lebanese initiative announced a week earlier to introduce drones into agriculture and forestry.
Located at the faculty of agronomy at the Lebanese University in Dikwaneh, this laboratory will operate under the Cannabis Regulatory Authority. It will be used to test and improve Lebanese therapeutic cannabis seeds to meet international standards, enabling potential exports, mapping growers and cataloguing cannabis strains.
"This will provide better visibility to investors interested in the Lebanese market," the president of the Cannabis Regulatory Authority, Dany Fadel, told L'Orient-Le Jour. He noted that the agreement had been in preparation since last February.
He said the Chinese company will provide $4 million worth of laboratory equipment, while the remainder of the funding will go to training and technical assistance, including the online publication of test results on the authority’s new website.
He added that "once operational, the laboratory will have ISO/IEC 17025 certification, which guarantees reliability. That doesn’t mean it will be the only lab in the country, but, thanks to its equipment, the Authority will also have the technical capability to approve private laboratories."
However, the regulatory framework drafted by the authority is still pending approval at the Central Inspection, where it has been stalled since last December, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah since March 2.
