Tarek Hoteit Notebook

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According to a DailyStar report, the Lebanese government signed an agreement to cut the procedural time from more than 46 days to 6 days for registering new businesses in Lebanon in hope of encouraging new businesses by local or abroad entrepreneurs. Article highlights a 2006 WorldBank report that it takes more than 45 days to register a company in Lebanon with an average cost of 94 percent of annual income per captita while it takes 11 days and an average cost of 25 percent of annual income per capita in Tunis, as comparison. Most of the 45 days are spent between collecting documents, forced visits to multiple government agencies and paying several fees for each of such institutions. The new process, supervised by the International Finance Corporation (a World BankGroup member), allows a business person to be represented by a legal representative who will submit the documents and payments to any local LibanPost (Lebanon's official office) branch in Lebanon on the behalf of the entrepreneur.

Labels: middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

Al-Akhbar newspaper started an interested weekly report: create a Tabouleh dish index that measure the ingredient and preparation cost of a Tabouleh dish in Lebanon. Idea is similar to "The Economist" Big Mac index that measure the cost of a McDonald's BigMac burger across the world in order to reflect a more realistic view of a country's inflation and purchase pricing power. In Al-Akhbar newspaper's last report, the paper indicated an %86.56 increase of price from July's price of 625LL to 1166LL during the first days of the Holy month of Ramadan (early September). On an average Lebanese's inflation is 4.6% measured by CPI index (consumer pricing index) in 2006 and therefore an %86.56 is surely an outrageous number that proves Lebanese businesses are manipulating prices and the government is not doing anything about it. The report goes into more detail in highlighting the price increase of each Tabouleh ingredient (tomato, parsley, etc.) with lettuce prices inflated the most and Ba'alback and central Bekaa area along with restaurants selling the most expensive Tabouleh dish.

Labels: finance, lebanon

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments