Lebanon's budget deficit swelled during the first 11months of last year as debt repayments for reconstruction projects increased.
However, the country's long-standing political deadlock has helped to maintain levels of public spending and curb the national debt load as the economy charges ahead.
Figures released by the Lebanese ministry of finance show the country's deficit reached 4.27 trillion Lebanese pounds (Dh10.39 billion) in the year to November, an increase of 9.4 per cent on the same period the previous year.
Lebanon has not passed a budget since 2005 and the resulting freeze on new government spending has created a fertile environment for investors, said Dr Marwan Barakat, the chief economist at Bank Audi, a Lebanese bank.
"Since 2005-2006, what we've seen is an improvement in debt ratios [because of] the fact that the government has been spending less than otherwise. This has constrained expenditure, while public revenues have been benefiting from the growth in the country.
"This has given more positive signals to the [international] investor community," he added.
Lebanon has experienced an average real annual GDP growth rate of 8.5 per cent over the past four years.
However, Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, said in a report that it expected growth to stumble, falling to 6 per cent this year and 5.5 per cent next year.
The agency warned that the country's debt-to-GDP ratio was high, however, although it predicted a fallfrom an expected 133.4 per cent at present to 125.8 per cent by the end of the year.
Lebanon faces21tn pounds of maturing debt this year, according to data from Bloomberg, much of which was accumulated between the end of the civil war in 1990 and the end of the 2006 war with Israel.
"The bulk of the Lebanese debt is held by the Lebanese themselves - it's not foreign debt," Dr Barakat said. This made the country's debt much more stable, he said.
"The locals aren't waiting for the first crisis signal to get out of the country."
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Holiday: Favourite travel destinations are London and St Tropez
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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Rugby World Cup (all times UAE)
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The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
'Project Power'
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback
Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Rating: 3.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Employment lawyer Meriel Schindler of Withers Worldwide shares her tips on achieving equal pay
Do your homework
Make sure that you are being offered a fair salary. There is lots of industry data available, and you can always talk to people who have come out of the organisation. Where I see people coming a cropper is where they haven’t done their homework.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate
It’s quite standard to negotiate if you think an offer is on the low side. The job is unlikely to be withdrawn if you ask for money, and if that did happen I’d question whether you want to work for an employer who is so hypersensitive.
Know your worth
Women tend to be a bit more reticent to talk about their achievements. In my experience they need to have more confidence in their own abilities – men will big up what they’ve done to get a pay rise, and to compete women need to turn up the volume.
Work together
If you suspect men in your organisation are being paid more, look your boss in the eye and say, “I want you to assure me that I’m paid equivalent to my peers”. If you’re not getting a straight answer, talk to your peer group and consider taking direct action to fix inequality.