A stroll through the ecosystem

The most common ecosystem disturbances are fast and furious. Earthquakes. Floods. Fires. Not so Circular 331. The initiative by Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank, provided a long-awaited capital injection into the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. But it’s a disturbance more akin to climate change than a meteor strike. Organisms long part of the ecosystem are adapting to the new disturbance, and it’s acted as a draw to bring new biomass into what is still a relatively small space for the startup-minded. In late March, central bank Governor Riad Salameh indicated Lebanese banks had committed $243 million to the ecosystem, around half of what 331 makes available (i.e., 3 percent of commercial and investment banks’ Tier 1 capital, an amount that grows year-on-year as bank profits increase). To date, only around $50 million has been deployed. While Executive heard no shortage of complaints (some of them contradictory), no one the