The hard sell

Lebanon’s industrialists have a cordial, even respectful, relationship with the nation’s bankers, but they could never be considered bosom buddies. Not only have trade, tourism and real estate had an easier task in courting the favor of the financiers, but the very fabric of the country is intertwined in a way that hobbles those entrepreneurs who have been prepared to get their hands greasy in the workshop. “The relationship between the industrialists and the commercial banks in Lebanon did not start on a good foot as they always preferred to do business with the traders,” explains Nazareth Sabounjian, owner and general manager of Georgi Sabounjian sarl and treasurer of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists (ALI). The Sabounjian business started as a two-room workshop making jewelry boxes in the late 1960s and it is now a modern plant of 12,000 square meters (sqm) with more than 200 staff. A plethora of