Speak up

Around this time last year, business leaders representing the Economic Committees, a collection of representatives of the nation’s private sector companies, met with government officials to sound the alarm bells over a tanking economy. Their contention then was that leading economic indicators suggested the economy was in terrible shape, going so far as saying the country faced the worst risk of GDP contraction since 1989, near the end of the civil war, when Lebanon’s economy recorded a 0.8 percent drop. One year on, the country is again facing grim economic prospects. The World Bank estimates that for 2014, Lebanon’s real GDP growth will reach only 1.5 percent, far below the growth rate of about 9 percent registered in 2009 and 2010, because of the volatile political environment in the country. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting only a 1 percent growth rate. Bank Audi also sounded the alarm in its