The relationship between the Lebanese economy and its banks is not quite as simple as the numbers suggest. Banking aggregates are improving every year. But the economy in Lebanon cannot be assumed to be sturdy just because the banking sector is jogging on and on. There are far too many risks and alarm signals on…
A window of opportunity
Executive met with Christina Lassen, head of the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, to discuss the challenges Lebanon is facing, what to expect from the upcoming CEDRE investment conference and Brussels II refugee aid conference, and the outcomes of last month’s Rome security conference. E It is an interesting time for Lebanon,…
Let the sunshine in
Anyone who has lived or spent time in Lebanon is aware of the chronic gaps in the electric grid, which have resulted in regularly scheduled power cuts of three hours a day in Beirut and as much as 12 hours a day outside the capital. The government has persistently pursued stopgap measures, such as renting…
What’s in the Capital Investment Plan?
Judging a book by its cover may no longer be common lingo in the digital age, but it seems to be exactly what Lebanon is hoping people will do ahead of the CEDRE investment conference scheduled for early April in Paris: Never mind the details; be impressed by the dazzling overall figures and exciting projects.…
A litmus test in Paris
April 6 could be a very good Friday for Lebanon. Not only does it unofficially usher in the fruit season, a symbol of renewal and rebirth, but it is also the day that state officials will pitch a set of large-scale infrastructure projects to the international community and investors at the CEDRE conference in Paris.…
This won’t be easy
This month, Lebanon will send a delegation of state officials to Paris to pitch an infrastructure development program dubbed the Capital Investment Plan (CIP) to the international community and private investors. Alongside the CIP officials will also unveil an economic vision, fiscal discipline measures, and structural and sectoral reforms. Of the four, Executive has only…
Making the most of it
Amartya Sen, the Indian economist and philosopher, wrote in a 2001 essay that in a world afflicted with “the deeply unequal sharing of the burden of adversities between women and men,” gender inequality must be understood as a “collection of disparate and interlinked problems.” Gender inequality is reflected in laws, regulations, rights, norms, responsibilities, and…
A community effort
Executive sat down with the country’s first-ever minister of state for women’s affairs, Jean Oghassabian. The ministry was launched one year ago with a mandate to empower and protect women and promote and develop gender equality in Lebanon. E This is the first term for you as minister of women’s affairs and, in fact,…
The countdown to political progress
This year will see some economic actors sitting in the sun. It does not require special astrological powers to predict that the first half of 2018 will be good for the bottom lines of local advertising companies, social media platforms, billboard operators, pollsters, and audiovisual companies. Driving down any urban highway or country road and…
Moving into a new world of parliamentary participation
At the end of February 2018, German women did it again. Chancellor Angela Merkel—supposedly the most powerful woman in the world, if one believes Forbes—won her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s election overwhelmingly to form a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had been hotly debated at the party and national level…