Q&A with Sir Andrew Cahn

  Lebanon is Britain’s eighth largest trading partner in the Middle East, and exports from the United Kingdom to Lebanon in the first half of this year amounted to $348 million, while UK imports from Lebanon added up to $40 million. This is fairly small fish compared to Lebanon’s trade with other European countries, but Sir Andrew Cahn, chief executive of UK Trade & Investment — roughly equivalent to a minister of trade — is looking to change that. Executive sat down with him on his recent visit to Beirut to find out what the UK has to offer besides tea and Manchester United. E  Britain is a relatively minor trade partner for Lebanon at the moment – do you have targets for how much you’d like to increase trade by? I don’t think it’s helpful to have targets because I can’t pull levers to make targets work, the business