The Arab highway, a flagship project to build a high-grade road link between Lebanon and Syria, has been cancelled. After spending two years and $7m...
Iraq. That was the succinct advice Fares Saad gave to a government running out of steam in promoting Lebanese exports last year. Some officials, such as...
Two of Lebanon’s top five insurance firms are negotiating a merger which, if successful, would create the largest local company in a fragmented sector...
Samir installed a new printing press at a cost of around $1m north of Beirut. He was ready to do business. A Swiss manufacturer, eager to recruit him as a...
The central bank spent $479m defending the Lebanese pound in the first month of this year. A report by the banks association published yesterday, the first...
The counter in the hall left of the reception desk at the central bank in Hamra says ‘bonds de tresor pour le public’. Banque du Liban, its officials like to...
The budget deficit dropped sharply in the first two months of this year. The ministry of finance said yesterday that the state collected LL644.1bn of revenue...
Businessmen, bankers and economists suggested alternatives yesterday to the unpopular government proposal to apply a one per cent turnover tax on firms to...
Investments in Lebanon fell to a record low last year, a leading bank said yesterday. In a report which reviewed economic performance last year, Fransabank...
If Rafik Hariri planned to smooth over Khalaf Habtoor over dinner yesterday, he had to do it with more than food. The billionaire investor from the UAE likes...
Stuttgart’s most conspicuous looking cars double parked outside the Gabriel hotel in Achrafieh yesterday heralded the official arrival of Fincorp a...
Khalaf Habtoor, head of the UAE group which withdrew from an estimated $200m worth of real estate projects in Lebanon last week, was invited to dinner by the...
Hardly anyone I know has ever bought a lottery ticket and until yesterday, neither had I. Perhaps we didn’t understand the rules, what the chances were,...
The audience, eager to ask more questions, moaned in disappointment as the lecturer, Riad Salameh, central bank governor, left the stage and the future...
Visa, the international credit card company, has teamed with Interbank, a local network founded by four large banks, to launch a new card in Lebanon. The...
The Al Habtoor Group denied yesterday it had abandoned development projects in Lebanon because they would not generate short-term profits. The group, which...
Société des Grands Hotels du Liban, the company that owns the Phoenicia hotel in downtown Beirut, is preparing to go public by the end of the year. The move...
The Lebanese government’s budget deficit target for this year has crept up to 42 per cent from a widely quoted 37 per cent. Fouad Siniora, the finance...
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire, pulled out of a $120m hotel project in Beirut because he could not buy the rights to manage the marina in...
The British Bank of the Middle East saw its profits rise by 31 per cent last year. The bank said that increased “high yielding” consumer lending,...
The world is talking to itself at ever increasing speeds. Judging from the systems and gadgets on display at the Arabcom 98 exhibition in Beirut there is a...
Sadek Kokaz brings up a colour map of Lebanon on his computer, clicks on the magnifying tool, and zeros in on one of 2,000 apartments he has for sale, down to...
Fransabank, Lebanon’s third largest bank, yesterday posted $41m in net profits, 50 per cent up on last year. At the same time, the bank announced that its...
Arab governments cannot embark on reforming the financial sector without solving pressing problems in their economies, Dr Nasser Saidi, first vice governor of...
In its first report about the Lebanese banking system, Thomson BankWatch, the world’s largest international bank credit rating agency, said sound...