Economy of Lebanon

The Lebanese urban population, is 80% of the population of the country, is known for its commercial spirit and its entreprenariat. Through the times, the Lebanese emigration made it possible to create a world network of companies " libanaises" established everywhere where were established the Lebanese one. Lebanon lays out of a proportion of qualified labor comparable with the majority of the countries of Europe, and the most qualified countries " arabes" (either countries where Arabic is only official language; much Lebanese rejects an Arab identity indeed, and prefers being identified with their ancestors phenicians; indeed, on the level of the phenotype and the genetic card, the Lebanese facies is very close to the Greek or sicilian facies, and this much more than of the Saoudi facies or émirati for example).

Recent Economic history

The civil war of 1975 to 1990 strongly damaged the Lebanese economic structures, reducing half the national wealth, and relegating the country to the row of simple petrodollar safe of the the Middle East. However, peace with strongly helped the government to take again control of the country, and in particular in the area of Beirut , the capital, while starting again to levy the taxes and by reopening the ports and international airports of the city. So the GDP per capita increased by 353% in the Nineties. Moreover, over this same period, Lebanon is located in 7th world position in terms of average annual growth.

The economic re-establishment of country was strongly helped by a powerful banking system, the dynamism of several family SME, the outside assistance, and the overseas investment, in particular French.

Agriculture

Lebanon has a very enviable situation for agriculture, in term of availability of water and fertility of the grounds. So Lebanon with the greatest proportion of arable lands of all the Arab countries. But ironically, it is not a very developed sector. It uses only 12% of the Lebanese labor, and contributes only to 11.7% of the GDP, which places agriculture at the last row of the economic sectors Lebanese.

Evolution of the GDP

The dynamism of the Lebanese economy is reflected by the first place which Lebanon in term of Gross domestic product occupies per capita, among all the countries of the Middle East and of North Africa not massive oil producers (thus whose majority of the incomes do not come from the export of hydorcarbures). Here an indicative table, which one will find on the site of the Funds International currency. Arménie was added with the countries mentioned in top, because of the presence of an important Armenian community in Lebanon.

to generate other comparative data:

References

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