Banque Libano-Francaise – Walid Raphaël

E Marwan Iskandar recently said that it is not realistic to think that Lebanon has not been affected by the global financial crisis, especially considering the public debt; what’s your take on this? It’s clear that we cannot say the international crisis has not affected Lebanon. We live in a global economy and Lebanon is very involved in the world; many Lebanese work abroad so they will either not be able to send any money or will send less money home. Up till now, a reduction of remittances has not materialized but we have not seen any figures, it’s just speculation. This is only part of the equation. The first [Lebanese] people that were really affected by the crisis in the Lebanese diaspora were those working in the banking sectors abroad. Nevertheless, what we’ve experienced in the past few years is a very strong euro and very strong commodity prices