World Bank Estimates that Lebanon Has Lost 7 Billion Dollars due to Syrian Refugees

President Michel Suleiman and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati held a work meeting on Friday on ongoing efforts to support Lebanon on the economic and security levels and in harboring Syrian refugees, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

Sources from the meeting revealed that the World Bank estimates that Lebanon has lost some $7 billion from the flow of refugees into the country.

This issue is at the heart of efforts of donor countries that are seeking to establish a development fund to support Lebanon's economy in light of these losses.

Miqati is following up on the case through direct contacts he is holding with the World Bank.

Meanwhile, the daily said that Suleiman is scheduled to travel to Kuwait at the beginning of next week to attend the Arab-African Summit.

The Gulf state is expected to host in January 2014 a conference on Syrian refugees, which will help Lebanon follow up on September's New York meeting that focused supporting the country in hosting the refugees.

Middle East Director of the World Bank Ferid Belhaj revealed that the Bank will set up a fund to garner hundreds of millions of dollars in donations aimed at helping Lebanon in supporting the burden of the refugees.

The donations will range between $300-400 million that will be spent on the pressing needs of the refugees.

A meeting held in New York in September on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly dedicated $339 million in additional humanitarian aid in response to the Syria crisis, including $74 million for Lebanon to support Syrian refugees.

Based on current trends, 1.3 million Syrian refugees could be in Lebanon by the end of this year, according to the report presented at the New York meeting.

The World Bank estimates that the total costs of spillover will shave close to 3 percentage points off gross domestic product growth per year between 2012 and 2014. Unemployment will double to more than 20 percent and about 170,000 additional Lebanese will be plunged into poverty on top of some 1 million currently living below the poverty line.