Assessing The Damage

In the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, global analysts, think tanks and ratings agencies were not slow to reassess the future of a Lebanon that until then had been bullish in its projections for future growth. One week after the killing, EXECUTIVE spoke to Simon Williams, senior economist for Middle East and North Africa, at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), arguably the world’s leading provider of country analysis and risk assessment, for his thoughts on Lebanon’s prospects. How did the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri affect the perception of Lebanon in the eyes of Europe? Economically, it is fairly self-apparent. Investors, who had looked at Lebanon and at what Lebanon had developed in terms of the last seven years in particular and had been quite excited about the things that Lebanon might be beginning to put forward, will now be very cautious. It brought