Mada Hospital planned for Miniyeh in 2022. 215 beds to meet healthcare needs

Excavation for Mada Hospital in Miniyeh-Danniyeh will start in the summer of 2019, and is expected to be completed in three years.

The four-story hospital will have a built-up area of 37,000 square meters.

"There is a large need in Miniyeh region for additional hospital beds," said Joyce Bitar, Project Engineer. The area currently has around 120 hospital beds between a private and a public hospital.

Mada Hospital will have 215 beds, six surgery rooms, a cancer treatment c...

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Health indicators advancing at high pace. Improvement in life expectancy, maternal, infant and under-five mortality up

Life expectancy in Lebanon at birth has improved, reaching 76.5 years in 2016, up from 75 years in 2015, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"The improvements in health indicators are due to new treatments and techniques integrated into the health system," said Sleiman Haroun, Chairman of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals. But, according to Haroun, these treatments and techniques are not cheap for patients.

The under-five mortality rate was 8.5 per 1,000 live births...

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Lira loans must constitute less than 25 percent of deposits.

The net value of the banks' outstanding loans to the private sector in lira must not exceed 25 percent of their customers' deposits in the same currency, according to a recent circular issued by the Central Bank (BDL).

The banks should settle the matter by the end of 2019. Once the deadline has elapsed, an amount equivalent to the loans exceeding the 25 percent ratio must be deposited with BDL at zero-interest rate until this irregularity is resolved, according to the circular.

The...

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Pharmaline to open Nahr Ibrahim factory. To increase under licensed production

Pharmaline, a manufacturer of pharmaceutical products and member of Malia Group, is building a factory in Nahr Ibrahim to be completed in late 2019.

Pharmaline will inject $13 million investments in the expansion.

The total built-up area of the factory is around 3,000 square meters (m2).

The facility is expected to double Pharmaline's production capacity, according to Carole Abi Karam, General Manager. It will include research and development and quality control labs.
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25 consortiums interested in hydropower production. Companies from 14 countries are bidding

The Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) has received 25 Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from local and international companies to participate in public-private partnerships for the development of hydroelectricity projects.

The EoIs, for the development, operation, and production of hydropower stations, cover more than ten rivers all over the country. They include projects with proposed capacities ranging from four to 40 megawatts (MW).

A technical team at the MoEW is reviewing all ...

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Housing Bank resumes mortgage loan subsidies. The bank is seeking loans from Arab Fund and EBRD

The Central Bank (BDL) will subsidize the interest rates of housing loans that Banque de l'Habitat (The Housing Bank) provides.

The subsidy will continue until the end of 2018, according to a new BDL circular.

Joseph Sassine, Chairman of Banque de l'Habitat, said that the bank is using its own resources because long-term lending is not currently available on the local market. "The bank could have invested these resources at high returns on the market instead of using them for l...

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Lebanese lira strong unaffected by Turkish crash. World currencies tumble including euro, rand, peso, ruble, and yuan

The Lebanese lira has not been affected by the jitters caused the crash of the Turkish currency. Many currencies around the world were caught by the contagion of the crash of the Turkish lira. The Lebanese currency will not be affected because it is well protected by large foreign asset reserves of the Central Bank (BDL), said Marwan Barakat, Chief Economist and Head of Research at the Bank Audi group.

BDL's foreign asset reserves have reached more than $44 billion, which is equivalent to...

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First 50Mb/s internet connection put online. 460,000 users to be connected to fiber optics in one year

OGERO has installed 36 active cabinets (smart) to its Bchamoun central, as the first milestone in the public fiber optics project FTTX. The project includes 'Fiber-to-the-Home' and 'Fiber-to-the-Cabinet', and ensures an internet connection speed of at least 50 Mb/s.

Imad Kreidieh, Director General of OGERO, said that fiber optic connections will be deployed at 40 additional centrals during the first half of the year 2019. OGERO expects 467,000 clients to use the FTTX network, increasing ...

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T-bill subscriptions reach $18 billion. Certificates of deposit worth $47 billion issued in 2017

Subscriptions to treasury bills (T-bills) last year increased 20 percent to $18 billion compared with the previous year, according to the 2017 'Monetary Policy' report of the Central Bank (BDL).

This compares with a surge of 39 percent in 2016, driven by the major financial engineering operations carried out by BDL that year.

The excess of the value of subscriptions over that of maturing T-bills totaled $794 million in 2017 compared, with $2.5 billion in the previous year.

T...

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Real exports up 13 percent in the first half.

Total 'real' exports increased 13 percent in the first half of this year, compared to the same period last year, registering $1.13 billion, according to figures published by Customs.

This increase comes after a 29 percent drop in the first half last year, compared to the same period in 2016.

'Real' export figures exclude pearls and precious stones, which registered $396 million compared to $337 million last year. The figures also exclude mineral products (mostly oil produ...

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Third electricity barge supplements Zouk output.

The Turkish electricity generation barge, Esra Sultan, has begun to provide power to the Zouk Power Plant. The barge arrived in Jiyeh in July, where it was connected to the power plant there. The barge was subsequently moved north and linked to the Zouk Power Plant.

The transportation and connection costs were covered by the Turkish company.

The barge has a maximum capacity of 235 Megawatts. It is currently generating 140 Megawatts.

Jbeil, Keserwan and part of Metn are now...

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Food & beverage sector largest in manufacturing. One third of production is exported

The Food and Beverages (F&B) sector comprises the largest number of industrial establishments, with 1,219 producers, accounting for 18.2 percent of the total industrial enterprises, according to 'The Food and Beverages Sector: Position, Problems and Prospects', published recently by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture in Beirut and Mount Lebanon (CCIAB).

Of these companies, 574 are registered members in the four chambers: 280 (nearly 50 percent of producers) are registered...

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Balance of payments deficit at $208 million in first half. Deficit narrows 81 percent

The deficit in the balance of payments (BoP) narrowed by 81 percent to $208 million in the first half of 2018 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data issued recently by the Central Bank (BDL).

The $208 million deficit resulted from an increase of $2.2 billion in BDL's net foreign assets and a decrease of $2.41 billion in the net foreign assets of banks and financial institutions during the first half of the current year.

Starting in November 2017, BDL began...

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Marina coming to Zouk Mosbeh. To include a touristic port and restaurants

'Dream by the Sea', a marina with a yacht club and restaurants, is planned for Zouk Mosbeh in 2021. Excavation will start within one month.

Dani Khoury and Mark Habka will invest around $25 million in the project. "The project will be similar to Zaitunay Bay in Beirut," said Habka, who is also the legal representative of the project.

The government issued the project a license to operate and invest in a 67,000 square meters (m2) land plot which is on the Zouk Mosbeh seaside beside...

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Cutthroat competition for bank deposits in lira. Up to 15 percent for long term commitments

Banks are competing aggressively to attract deposits, especially those denominated in lira. They seek to extend deposit maturities, according to the cover story of the August issue of Lebanon Opportunities.

To encourage their customers to boost their lira deposit levels, banks are passing on generous interest margins offered by the Central Bank (BDL). In July, a number of banks were offering 11 percent on lira deposits converted from dollars for a maturity of two years, 12 percent for t...

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Housing loans subsidies will resume next year. Banks lost $90 million on subsidy halt

The State will resume interest-subsidies for housing loans, as it is part of the national policy to support new households and to discourage young people from emigrating, said Joseph Torbey, Chairman of the Association of Banks.

Subsidized housing loans will be the first topic on the agenda of the new Cabinet once it is formed because of its strategic importance, Torbey said. All top officials, starting from the President to the Governor of the Central Bank (BDL), are of the same mind tha...

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No bank losses from Iraqi gang. Torbey: Assault did not result in any capital withdrawals

Local banks did not suffer any direct material loss from the recent attempt by an Iraq-based gang to defraud and blackmail them, according to Joseph Torbey Chairman of the Association of Banks.

He said that these attacks did not result in any capital withdrawals from the banking system.

"The main perpetrators have been incarcerated and law enforcement agencies are working to arrest their accomplices. It is the banks that are now waging a counter-attack on these gangs," Torbey said....

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$1.7 billion subscribed in investment funds. Fixed-income securities are favored

Total subscriptions in local and foreign investment funds reached $1.7 billion in 2017, a drop of three percent compared with the previous year, according to the annual report of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) for 2017.

The number of local and foreign funds with local subscriptions increased last year by 7.6 percent to 527.

Subscriptions in local funds fell 6.6 percent to $791 million while the funds' total number increased by 15 percent to 23.

Subscriptions in local f...

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