Executive sat with Nicolas Chammas, chairman of the Beirut Traders’ Association, to discuss the retail sector’s performance in 2017, in light of continuous market stagnation in Lebanon. E As of mid-November, how has 2017 been for the trade sector in Lebanon? This year has, unfortunately, been another bad year. The decline in the commercial sector has been a steady one since 2011. The growth rate for the economy in the past five or six years has been less than 2 percent, which is negligible. This is the nominal growth, not the real growth—which is less—while the growth per capita is negative. Taking the period between end of 2011 and end of 2017, the average decline for the trade sectors combined is 35 to 40 percent. This is really a meltdown of the trade sector in Lebanon, keeping in mind that it’s the [greatest] contributor to GDP. The food and
Nabila is Executive's hospitality, tourism and retail editor. She also covers other topics she's interested in such as education and mental health. Prior to joining Executive, she worked as a teacher for eight years in Beirut. Nabila holds a Masters in Educational Psychology from the American University of Beirut.
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