Economic Research | Lebanon This Week | Lebanon This Week 564 | UNCTAD issues recommendations to improve investment climate in Lebanon | Lebanon | Byblos Bank

You are being redirected to .

 

Please Rotate your screen to portrait, for best viewing.

Byblos Bank

Lebanon This Week 564

|

UNCTAD issues recommendations to improve investment climate in Lebanon

In its Investment Policy Review of Lebanon (IPR), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), at the request of the Lebanese government, assessed the country's investment regulatory framework to identify key constraints that limit Lebanon's investment potential, and to provide recommendations to address them. It reviewed the existing legal and institutional frameworks for foreign direct investments (FDI), as well as several areas of the policy framework that affect local and foreign investors, including the establishment and liquidation of companies, taxation, labor, competition, governance, and the environment.  

In its assessment of the investment legal framework, the UNCTAD indicated that there are no restrictions on the transfer of capital, profits and dividends to and from Lebanon. It noted that authorities have adopted in recent years a set of laws to comply with the MENA-Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. However, it said that several restrictions to FDI exist in Lebanon, while these restrictions are not regularly reviewed and are not clearly specified in a single list. It noted that Lebanon's Investment Law 360 is not comprehensive, while some sectors, such as fixed line telephony and energy transmission, are closed to domestic and foreign investors. Also, it said that the Investment Development Authority of Lebanon (IDAL), which is in charge of investment promotion and facilitation, has a concurrent regulatory role that is not in line with good practices. In this regard, the UNCTAD's short-term recommendations consist of publishing an exhaustive list of restrictions to FDI in an official document; and of separating within IDAL the staff responsible for investment promotion and for administering incentives. Its medium-term recommendations consist of reevaluating the need for some of the current investment restrictions as part of the ongoing revision of the Lebanese Commercial Code. It also asked authorities to introduce a reference for non-discrimination or national treatment in domestic legislation in order to grant the core standards of treatment and protection to foreign investors. It said that its longer-term recommendation is for authorities to revise the current investment law in order to formally shift the regulatory functions away from IDAL.    

In parallel, the UNCTAD indicated that the establishment of a business in Lebanon is cumbersome and costly due to a series of requirements and the lack of online services, while business liquidation is burdensome and lengthy. As such, it encouraged authorities to introduce an online one-stop-shop service to simplify the processes of establishing and liquidating a business. Also, the UNCTAD's short-term recommendations consist of conducting a complete review of existing procedures to establish or liquidate a business, and to assess if they are legally required or were introduced through practice. It also called on authorities to adopt the draft law on bankruptcy and insolvency practitioners in order to modernize their frameworks. Further, it encouraged the government to ratify the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents, in order to facilitate the registration of foreign branches and representative offices in the country and reduce the related paperworks and red tape. Over the medium term, the UNCTAD recommended the establishment of e-registration procedures by interconnecting governmental services, and called on authorities to publish the list of required steps to establish a business and make it legally binding.
 
Cookies Information

To optimize this website's functionality, we may utilize cookies, which are small data files stored on your device. This common practice helps improve your browsing experience.

Privacy settings

Choose which cookies you wish to enable.
You can change these settings at any time. However, this can result in some functions no longer being available. For more information on deleting cookies, please consult your browser help function.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COOKIES WE USE.

Use the slider to enable or disable various types of cookies:

Necessary
Functionality
Analytics
Marketing

This website will:

  • Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Allow session cookies
  • Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Helps prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks
  • Preserves the visitor's session state across page requests
  • Remember personalization settings
  • Remember selected settings
  • Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Keep track on the time spent on each page
  • Increase the data quality of the statistics functions
  • Use information for tailored advertising with third parties
  • Allow you to connect to social sites
  • Identify device you are using
  • Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location

This website won't:

  • Remember your cookie permission setting
  • Allow session cookies
  • Gather information you input into a contact forms, newsletter and other forms across all pages
  • Helps prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks
  • Preserves the visitor's session state across page requests
  • Remember personalization settings
  • Remember selected settings
  • Keep track of your visited pages and interaction taken
  • Keep track about your location and region based on your IP number
  • Keep track on the time spent on each page
  • Increase the data quality of the statistics functions
  • Use information for tailored advertising with third parties
  • Allow you to connect to social sites
  • Identify device you are using
  • Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location


Save And Close