We participated at the Lebanese Week in Jeddah event which was organized by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Agriculture in Beirut and Mount Lebanon in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah.

Chairman of IDAL, Mr. Nabil Itani took part in the opening of the event highlighting Lebanon’s FDI performance, Lebanese exports and deposits in the Lebanese banks. Itani also emphasized on the importance of Saudi investments in Lebanon which so far have created investment opportunities in several economic sectors. Mr. Itani met on the margins of the event many officials and Saudi businessmen.

Our staff has attended the Annual Investment Meeting which took place in Dubai from 8-10 April. The workshop gathered key policy makers to discuss means to increase investments to emerging markets.

Many topics were discussed including the following: (1) The role of Incentives in attracting investments: more specifically the experience of other countries highlighted the limited role that incentives currently play in impacting investor decisions. Incentives have often been used by policy makers to offset a sub-optimal investment environment thus creating short term solutions which are not sustainable in the long-run. 

The Scottish Development Agency for example shifted its strategy from promoting incentives to focusing on local talent base, cost of labor and level of universities. The other topic which was discussed is (2) the importance of information in attracting investments and more specifically the role of investment promotion agencies in that regard.

Finally, the workshop addressed the (3) policy options available to investors to counter political risk in emerging markets.

We took part in the workshop organized by the OECD, and which was held at the League of Arab States Headquarters in Cairo on April 7 & 8 to discuss ''The amended Arab League Investment Agreement: key improvements and ratification process".

IDAL was represented by its legal adviser Me. Walid Hanna.

In this issue we will be covering the Chinese interest in exporting Lebanese Agro-Food products, as well as a snapshot of the major foreign and local companies establishing their business in Lebanon in Quarter I of this year.

You can also find further information on the types of incentives that you can benefit from if you choose to establish your business in the newly launched private industrial zones.

To download this issue, please click here.