15 more planes and HQ for MEA. Wi-Fi to become available in-flight

Middle East Airlines (MEA) plans to purchase 15 new airplanes between 2019 and 2021, 11 Airbus A321s and four other 'wide-body' variants. The new planes will be equipped with Wi-Fi.

MEA will expand its headquarters to include several new buildings and hangars, according to its Chairman Mohammad El Hout.

The expansion of the headquarters, located near MEA's recently inaugurated training center near the airport, will cost $150 million.

Works will start next year.

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Customs clearance reduced from 16 days to a few hours. Customs decision regarding import and export formalities

The Customs issued a decision requiring importers and exporters to get pre-clearance for their goods prior to arrival at the port.

The decision will be implemented on imported goods starting April 30. It will apply on exported goods in the coming months.

Importers will be required to submit a detailed statement once they produce a shipping manifest. All the data regarding the clearance of goods and the paperwork will be done electronically. Traders should provide all data about t...

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Pikasso adopts technologies for audience measurement.

Implementation agreements signed with two international companies
Pikasso, an Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising company, has signed a partnership agreement with two international companies, CUENDE Infometrics and Quividi, for audience measurement and accountability services.

Antonio Venciti, Chairman of Pikasso, said: "Advertisers and clients don't want to be kept in the dark and need figures about their audience reach."

The partnership with Quividi will provide Pikasso with audien...

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$11.8 billion promised at the Paris CEDRE conference. $4 billion record single pledge from the World Bank

The CEDRE donor conference has resulted in $11.8 billion in pledges of financial assistance, out of which $11 billion are in soft loans. There were 51 countries represented at the conference in addition to international donor institutions.

The various loans are expected to carry a 1.5 percent interest rate over periods ranging from 20 to 30 years.

CEDRE is the acronym for 'Conférence économique pour le développement par les réformes et avec les entrepris...

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Viral IMF audio message discovered to be a hoax. Voice identified as former Assistant Dean of AUB

A message that went viral on social media, attributed to an official from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has been discovered by Lebanon Opportunities' BusinessNews to be a hoax.

The voice message was recognized as that of Mohamad Zeidan, a former Assistant Dean at the Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut (OSB-AUB). His comments were made during a conference organized in Beirut last month. Zeidan was intervening as a member of the audience.

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