Talk to local manufacturers and you won’t hear a lot of talk about demand cycles and product innovation, successful brand building and the occupation of new niches in international markets. Instead you are more likely to get an ear full about issues such as excessive location costs and energy prices, the overbearing bureaucracy, unpredictable and unstudied alterations of customs tariffs, insufficient loan facilities and expensive credit. It’s not that these complaints aren’t well founded. The obstacles and troubles are real enough. But there seems to be a danger that the concerns and worries could turn into industrialist mantras of doom and self-destructive laments. This would not help a manufacturing entity that already has its share of existential questions. The Lebanese public and the representatives of the various communities and political interests in the country should have no reason to doubt, or as occasionally has happened, even refute that this is
