Search Results for: Lebanese

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

ONE month into the Israel-Hizbullah conflict, multinational food companies operating in Lebanon have ground to a halt, with the country facing a near total economic blockade and fuel supplies running out.

Since July 12, around 85% of all factories have been forced to close, 35 have been destroyed and distribution is increasingly difficult with over 60 bridges out of action, roads pock-marked with craters and over 450 trucks having been targeted by Israeli warplanes.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Damascus

CLASSES at all of Lebanon’s universities have been cancelled and international students and faculty are being evacuated following Israel’s air and sea bombardment of the country.

The American University of Beirut’s (AUB) provost Peter Heath announced Sunday that all classes for the summer semester were cancelled until further notice.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

THE COSMETICS and toiletries market in the Middle East is booming with 12% growth expected this year in a US$2.1 billion sector. Market trends differ from country to country, but the general trend is rising demand for European cosmetics over local products in the wealthier Arab countries, largely due to aggressive marketing campaigns by the major brands, and high demand for unregistered, fake brand name perfumes in countries with sizeable low-income populaces, such as Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.…

BY MARK ROWE AND PAUL COCHRANE

INTRODUCTION

JUST as chocolate sells well in cold countries, so do soft drinks flourish in hot countries, which would suggest that North Africa and the Levant presents an inviting face to the international drinks market.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE
FOLLOWING the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon at the end of April 2005 the country’s tobacco industry has encountered certain setbacks, largely connected with the exodus of Syrian workers. These migrants were Lebanon’s primary source of cheap labour, particularly in agriculture and construction, and their departure has affected the tobacco picking season, particularly in the Bekaa Valley, one of Lebanon’s main tobacco growing areas.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE
IN the Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian paint markets there is always an extra ingredient that must be thrown into the mix: politics. The political situation, internal or external, can have positive knock-on effects, such as Jordan’s booming construction market due to an influx of Iraqi refugees, or negatively, such as in Lebanon, where the sector is experiencing something of a slump due to political instability.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

THE LEBANESE car market experienced its worse summer in decades as a result of the month-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a two-month sea blockade and an economic downturn, with the number of new registered cars dropping 81% in August alone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LEBANON has an international reputation far greater than its geographical size and population, much like its national debt. At US$38 billion it is equivalent to over a 100% of the country’s GDP, with a significant chunk of this staggering sum attributed directly to corruption and commercial crime.…