Nicolas Chammas

ENAR

Executive sat with Nicolas Chammas, head of the Beirut Traders Association (BTA), to discuss the performance of the trade sector this year and what can be done to support it through these tough times.  How would you describe the trade sector in the year 2013? 2013 was an extrapolation from 2012 and even more catastrophic in some ways. I even referred to September 2013 [as the United States discussed airstrikes on Syria] as Black September, a throwback to the civil war years and the Black September then. It was then that, for the first time in forty years, the employers association took the decision to strike for the day and though we were practically shooting ourselves in the foot, the situation was that drastic and it forced us to take to the streets and demand that a government be formed. In terms of the BTA FransaBank retail index we had