'Show me the money'; dollar-hungry businesses squeezed in Lebanon

September 19, 2019 - Beirut, Lebanon, Asia, Middle East - Cars line up to fill their tanks but the worker at the gas station in Lebanon's capital city waves them off, pointing at the 'Strike!' signs. "No fuel today," he shouts.     The day of industrial action, replicated at petrol pumps across the country, was not really about fuel, it was about the dollars needed to pay for it, or rather the lack of them. "We don't want a crisis ... the sector is bleeding," said Fadi Abu Chakra, a spokesman for fuel distributors who led the strike this week. "We (get paid) in Lebanese pounds, and we need dollars to pay importers. Where are we supposed to get dollars if the banks are not giving them?"     A stagnant local economy and a slowdown in cash injections from Lebanese abroad have reduced the central bank's foreign currency reserves, making it difficult for businesses to buy the dollars they need from banks.