Reading Time: 20 minutes In discussing Lebanon’s economic survival, some local opinion makers and economists have been making nothing but dire predictions since the fourth quarter of 2019. Executive wanted to take the perspective of Freddie Baz, a Lebanese economist, banker, and citizen who has for over two decades been a regular interlocutor of this magazine on banking and…
Signs of positive disruptions in the Lebanese tech ecosytem
Reading Time: 16 minutes Moving counter-cyclically to conventional business wisdom and exhibiting disregard for old boundaries are attributes of enterprising minds, of those daring people who start pursuing an economic opportunity without regard for the current resources at their disposal. In the case of Lebanon in 2020, one could add that these have to be enterprising minds without regard…
Q&A with Smart ESA’s Jihad Bitar on upcoming hackathon and future plans for the accelerator
Reading Time: 8 minutes The middle of 2020 is seeing three virtual hackathons—the first that are being staged in Lebanon in the space of just two weeks, from June 27 until July 10. Organized by the MIT Lebanon challenge, the American University of Beirut, and the Smart ESA accelerator at the Ecole Superieure des Affaires, all three separate hackathons…
Teams in MIT hackathon give Lebanon’s virtual salvation their best try
Reading Time: 6 minutes The only things that are growing fast are bouts of desperation and the holes in people’s pockets. At least that’s the popular impression of the Lebanese crisis, one that can locally be reinforced by a trip to any supermarket and that has in recent weeks further been exacerbated by superficial and repetitive international media reporting.…
Questions on data, policy design, and usefulness of assumptions
Reading Time: 11 minutes Economic man is a curious construct. Once thought to be a being superior to the common human in his pursuit of value creation and profit generation, the image of this specialized imaginary human subspecies has fundamentally changed. In fact, economic man has reached a point where some contemporary economists describe this model as emotionally dysfunctional—proposing…
Banking economists on the Lebanese banking sector
Reading Time: 14 minutes Bankers are people. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, spouses, children, cousins, clients, business advisors, financial partners, and friends of other Lebanese people. Given that over 25,000 individuals are employed in the local banking sector, with high percentages of them being women (in comparison to most not “traditionally female” professions) in a banking workforce that is composed…
The Lebanese banking sector, a long view
Reading Time: 10 minutes Lebanon’s geographic location and trading history dictate the need for three basic premises in terms of its Economic Policy: a strong and stable currency, advantageous trading facilities and low taxes. Michel Chiha Once there was a time when a Lebanese banker had a national vision. Whether a contemporary citizen agrees with this vision or not…
British ambassador outlines prospects of bilateral relations and economic interaction between London and Beirut
Reading Time: 13 minutes The situation may change, but trusted relations remain. Lebanon’s economy today needs honest interaction and connectivity to long-standing partners more than ever before in the history of this state. The United Kingdom is a partner country at the (from Lebanese geographic perspective) far end of Europe that has had engaged with Lebanon in significant ways…
Futures in question as losses hit Lebanese car importers
Reading Time: < 1 minute Citing a 91 percent year-on-year drop in registration numbers of new motor vehicles in April 2020, member companies of the AIA Lebanon (Association des Importateurs d’Automobiles au Liban) fear widespread business closures that could lead to losses of about 10,000 direct jobs. Naming financial barriers, the AIA in a letter of alarm points to “impossibility…
Q&A with Riad Obegi, chairman of Banque BEMO, on banking sector challenges
Reading Time: 7 minutes At a time when banking is materially challenged by economic and financial stresses, and is faced with extreme criticism from distressed depositors and the explosion of economic commentators and activists of all colors in the country, Executive wanted to know what local banking leaders have to say about the quagmire and the way forward. Riad…