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Updates on Lebanon’s banking sector
Executive sat with the governor of Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank, Riad Salameh, for updates on the banking sector, the results of the central bank’s monetary policy, the stimulus of the...
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Lebanese banks comply with US Hezbollah Act
The introduction to this interview has been updated in response to the June 12 bombing of the Blom Bank headquarter branch in the Verdun district of Beirut. The original introduction began by noting...
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Dissecting the numbers
Although 2015 was a trying year for the Lebanese economy and tested many economic players beyond what they experienced in the already challenging year of 2014, the results of Lebanese banks were...
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In conversation with Freddie Baz of Bank Audi
In May 2016, rumors circulated that the largest banking group in Lebanon, Audi, had engaged in an exercise of tinkering with the possibility of relocating its corporate holding to a foreign...
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Hotels bridge troubled financial waters
From the fifteen year long Civil War which began in 1975, to the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, to the sit-ins in downtown Beirut in 2007 and numerous other disruptions, it seems...
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Streaming hits big in the Middle East
It’s a sunny afternoon in Beirut and you’re sitting in a café, waiting for a friend who is running fashionably late as usual, but it doesn’t bother you because now you have time to catch the latest...
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A law for building wealth
Lebanon is being blessed with another proposed law, and several serious voices are intonating praise of the type of a minor doxology to the deities of capital. The new private equity draft law is...
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Investment decisions
Investing in a venture capital (VC) fund is a bit like betting on a horse. The gambler can choose a horse carefully, looking at the animal’s past performance and even evaluating the jockey, but once...
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Your dream of the stadium, Fly-Foot assists you there
It was over their mutual love of football that Rayan Ismail, Georges Batrouni and Firas Arab hatched their plan to create Fly-Foot, the first football game travel company in the region. Football (or...
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Banking on our self-reliance
The first rule of business ethics is: if you’re not proud enough of your work to talk publicly about it, something must be wrong. That the government once again cancelled a waste management contract...
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A post-Brexit world
After 43 years of – often rocky – togetherness, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. What sounds like a run-of-the-mill divorce is much more. It is an economic step that will have...
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A strategy, please
Lebanon’s tourism stakeholders have learned the hard way that an over-reliance on one type or one nationality of tourists is akin to shooting yourself in the foot. One need only take a look at cities...
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What’s on the tourism menu?
Whether it’s summer resort towns like Bhamdoun, Aley, Zahle or Dhour Choueir which began to flourish in the 1940s – and were frequented by both local Lebanese escaping the heat of Beirut and...
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Hanging on
In May 2016, a collective online call to action, under the hashtag #lawshumasar (whatever happens), was issued by key figures in the creative and productive sector to keep working in Lebanon no matter...
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Broken financing
From wellness to cherries, at hospitality clusters and beach resorts, Lebanon’s event organizers and business owners outside the capital agree on one thing: municipalities should do more to bolster...
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Municipality matters
May 2016 was municipal council election time in Lebanon and so, every Sunday of that month, many Lebanese headed to their area of origin and cast their vote for who would essentially be in charge of...
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Wasted opportunities
The lack of transparency in finding a way out of the July 2015 garbage crisis is appalling. Last August, the private sector put forward offers that would have seen modern waste solutions put in place...
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Clearing up the mess
This article has been updated from the print edition to reflect news developments. There’s a landfill in Lebanon people usually forget about. It’s around 15 kilometers northeast of Beirut in a town...
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No high-tech fix for our millennia-old garbage problem
Here’s a question no one asks: What did Adam and Eve do with the apple core? Did they compost it or simply toss it into the nearest river or valley? Waste has been with humanity since the very...
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Pushing for a little more equality
Titled Capital in the 21st Century, the book by French economic historian Thomas Piketty is a versatile and useful tome. Author Thomas Piketty came to pay his inaugural visit to Beirut and a repeat...
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