Lebanon puts itself back at the hub

A series of recent reforms has raised hopes that the capital markets will have a bigger role to play in Lebanon’s economic story. But is it another false dawn? James Featherstone reports.

Still no date for crucial donor conference

By James Featherstone

former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri
The assassination in February 2005 of former prime minister Rafik Hariri seriously set back the Lebanese markets and wider economy

A SENIOR INVESTMENT banker in Beirut is not sanguine about reform in Lebanon. “If you wanted to make all these reforms happen quickly and easily, you wouldn’t start from where we are now,” he says. Lebanon’s recent history being what it is, that is unarguable. But capital markets reform and economic improvement are both happening.

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