JUNE 2013

The wild card in play

Hezbollah’s shifting battlefield
Resistance adjusts its rhetoric as Syria involvement intensifies

Tied fortunes
Lebanon’s economic recovery is rooted in Syria’s reconstruction

Result through resolve
Nazareth battles obstruction to become education and entrepreneurship hub

The Far East comes near
China dips its toe in the Middle East’s troubled waters

Dolma at every meal
Presidential candidates reluctant to condemn handouts before election

Making the best of a bottom dollar
Socially conscious services from local microlenders

Lending hope
The benefits of microfinance

Every little bit helps
Lebanon’s poorest are missing out on savings and insurance

Banks fleeing the storm
Lebanon’s banks chase profits away from troubled homeland

Growing pains
Stability needed to curb debt

Credit crunched
Banks contracts their lending muscle

New banks on the block
Four financial institutions debut in Lebanon

Paper or plastic
Cash still overshadows credit cards in Lebanon

Bank to the future
Innovation needed to grow e-banking in Lebanon

A weighty responsibility
Banking executives must keep cyber networks safe

The art of banking
Where high finance meetings high culture

Raymond Audi
On Bank Audi’s chairman love affair with art

Investment ideas
Regional experts weigh in on the markets

Dead in the water
Lebanon’s insurers beset by limp economy

A thankless task
Insurers’ dearly image makes finding talent tough

Covering the net
Insurance boosts online security

Playing by the rules
Arabia benefits from an orderly house

Uneasy bedfellows
Banks losing interest in a profligate governments

The hard sell
Industrialists face uphill battle to get bankers’ support

Cut the factory fat
Lean manufacturing the key to optimum company output

Profits for the public
Private equity can cure an ailing sector

Invested development
Banks bend BDL regulations to cash in on real estate

The Kings of Clubs
Add mind finds the pulse of the party

An empire on hold
Phoenicia Hotel suspends its plans to deal with difficult times

Carsten Schaeffer
Germany’s national airline maintains a youthful outlook

Company bulletin

Cough it up, Lebanon
Tobacco taxation can reduce consumption and contraband