Lebanon Opportunities:
20 Years Special Issue

GDP has tripled since

magazine was first published

Lebanon Opportunities celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. The magazine was first published to chronicle a national promise of progress and development. Dreams abound of a modern country, fair to its citizens, hospitable to its returning or visiting expatriates and to tourists, enabling business to thrive, and protecting the weak strata of its people. Doers and cynics battled, back then, the merits of these dreams – and they still do today. Lebanon Opportunities committed itself on the side of the doers. The successes realized in the past two decades, and the pitfalls as well, show that the battle is not yet over.

BEFORE AND AFTER
A special anniversary issue of Lebanon Opportunities has been published, dedicated to drawing a contrast between the picture at the time the magazine started, and a snapshot of today’s situation. Backed by statistics, a story is being told, pointing to major achievements. A solid economy has been built, a private sector is standing on solid ground, a diversification of sectors is providing jobs to all kinds of specialties, and access to funding is available to both companies and a squandering public sector. Companies still do not have it easy, jumping over obstacles, starting with an archaic public sector, barriers to exports, high energy costs, and a decaying infrastructure, and a legal system that is no longer adapted to current needs.

WHAT WORKS
For 20 years, Lebanon Opportunities has been published every month, an entire magazine on what is working, how it is done, where the opportunities are, and how to face obstacles. Combined, the works can be classified as encyclopedic. This was not the fruit of imagination, or a matter of opinion. Some have labeled it optimistic. The magazine editors prefer the term factual.

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED
Everything has gone up in the past 20 years. The economy is now more than three times larger, the public debt twice as big, and banks are five times what they used to be in terms of assets and loans. The macro view shows improvement in every sector, as well as ailments that come with an archaic and anarchist environment, both in the real and figurative senses.

MONEY MONEY MONEY
It all boils down to dollars and liras. It is one of the most important measures of success and failure. Deposits in banks are now more than $160 billion, most of it owned by locals, residents, and expatriates. This measure indicates a five times wealthier society, albeit hiding increasingly alarming disproportion between the poor and the rest of the people. The country risk has abated as demonstrated by the declined differential between the libor and local t-bills.

BRICKS AND MORTAR
Infrastructure was built almost totally from scratch. Highways, bridges and roads, schools, hospitals, telecom, and electricity (yes, electricity), water and wastewater, and much more have been built and rebuilt. The cost has been staggering, but hundreds of companies have been contracted to execute the work. Residential real estate and the private side of construction have witnessed a boom in projects and prices. A double-edged sword, as it has allowed the housing of a large number of people, while also their staggering and rising prices are pushing many people abroad.

VIRTUAL WORLD
No sector has seen more advancement than telecom, which was quasi inexistent 20 years ago. The advent of the Internet coupled with the introduction of GSM-based mobile telephony has transformed forever the lifestyle of rich and poor, adding an important component to the household and corporate basket of expenses.

WELCOME
The hospitality sector has undertaken vast modernization and innovation campaigns buoyed by a new airport, luxury shopping venues, and innovative cuisines. Tourism, internal and from abroad, regained its market share in the national economy, and become an exporter as well of restaurant concepts as well as of skilled management and labor.

SQUEAKY WHEELS
The myth of an economy exclusively focused on service has been shattered by a burgeoning manufacturing base that was able to export to all corners of the world. Not just traditional processed food, our industry now includes electric generators, paper and packaging products, printing, pharmaceuticals, construction material, and much more. This light and medium industry includes a lot of added value and is a prime job creator.

SHOP TILL YOU DROP
In the past two decades, a full upgrade of the retail environment was undertaken, with many new locally developed and imported concepts being created. Not an international brand is missing from the offering, not a retail concept remains undeveloped. Targeting the luxury markets, the middle class and low-income earners, there is something for everyone. The country has become a retail destination for visitors from the Gulf.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Health and education have kept outpacing most other countries in the Middle East with a flurry of institutions. The UN’s Human Development Index consequently has improved much faster than other developing nations. The country boasts a very high number of teachers and doctors per capita. The quantitative measure does not necessarily assure a similar qualitative excellence. But the base has been set.