Falling on country risk

Lebanon ranks 82nd worldwide and 11th in MENA in country risk measurement

Euromoney magazine ranked Lebanon in 82nd place worldwide and in 11th place among 20 countries in the MENA region in September in its quarterly survey of the country risk of 184 countries.

The country ranked in 92nd place globally and in 11th place regionally in June 2011, as a result of the political tension and failure to form a Cabinet.

“Our economic prospects in the first half of the year were gloomy and uncertain,” said Marwan Barakat, Head of Research at Bank Audi, explaining the improvement of the country’s risk measurement. However the outlook improved over the third quarter of the year due to three main reasons. "The formation of the government and the renewal of the term of the Central Bank governor have helped reducing monetary concerns,” said Barakat. He also said that the release of the International Tribunal’s indictment relieved some security concerns, which alleviated further economic risks.

The survey evaluates the country risk by assigning a weighting to six categories that cover Political Risks, Economic Performance, Access to Bank Finance and Capital Markets, Debt Indicators, Credit Ratings, and Structural Assessment.
Lebanon’s score of 46.01 points increased by ten percent from June 2011 survey. However, it scored below the global average of 45.82 points and lower than the MENA and Arab averages of 46.96 points and 46.6 points, respectively.

Lebanon posted the largest increase in scores and rankings among MENA countries in the September 2011 survey from June 2011. The country came ahead of Syria and behind Iraq in Economic Performance. It ranked ahead of all Arab countries on the Structural Assessment category.