Raoul Nehme (Arabic :راوولنعمة;born January 20,1956) served as the Lebanese minister of economy and trade from 2020 to 2021.
Nehme went to school at Collège Notre Dame de Jamhour and studied in France at the Ecole Polytechnique (engineering with a major in economics) and Mines ParisTech (engineering with a major in scientific management). [1] He is a part of the Greek-Catholic community.
In January 2020,Nehme was appointed minister of economy and trade by Prime Minister Hassan Diab. He joined the government as President's nominee,though he is himself independent.
Prior to his appointment in the government,Nehme worked in the banking industry. He has experience handling several establishments in crisis:
Nehme is the president and co-founder of NGO Jouzour Lebanon [3] (meaning "roots of Lebanon"),an environmental NGO dedicated to reforestation.
Nehme's nomination as minister of economy came as Lebanon was experiencing a double political and economic crisis that resulted in a default [4] on March 9,2020. The general situation was further complicated by the coincident COVID-19 pandemic. As minister of economy,Nehme introduced measures to protect the consumer by limiting abusive price increases, [5] banning the exportation of critical medical equipment [6] and implementing measures to mitigate the propagation of the SARS-CoV-2. [7]
The economy of Lebanon has been experiencing a large-scale multi-dimensional crisis since 2019,including a banking collapse,the Lebanese liquidity crisis and a sovereign default. It is classified as a developing,lower-middle-income economy. The nominal GDP was estimated at $19 billion in 2020,with a per capita GDP amounting to $2,500. In 2018 government spending amounted to $15.9 billion,or 83% of GDP.
The mixed economy of Sri Lanka was worth $84 billion by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 and $296.959 billion by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country had experienced an annual growth of 6.4 percent from 2003 to 2012,well above its regional peers. This growth was driven by the growth of non-tradable sectors,which the World Bank warned to be both unsustainable and unequitable. Growth has slowed since then. In 2019 with an income per capita of 13,620 PPP Dollars or 3,852 (2019) nominal US dollars,Sri Lanka was re-classified as a lower middle income nation with the population around 22 million (2021) by the World Bank from a previous upper middle income status.
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While beginning in the United States,the Great Recession spread to Asia rapidly and has affected much of the region.
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Shadi A. Karam received degrees from the American University of Beirut (AUB),Columbia University,and Harvard University. In his primary professional capacity,he is known as a specialist in the restructuring of organizations and distressed companies,most notably occupying the post of Financial Adviser to the Director General of UNESCO and serving as a Chairman and CEO of several major companies in Europe and the Middle East in various sectors,ranging from industry to real estate development,hotels,trading and financial services.
Between 2011 and 2017,fighting from the Syrian civil war spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian Arab Republic traveled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil. The Syrian conflict stoked a resurgence of sectarian violence in Lebanon,with many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims supporting the rebels in Syria,while many of Lebanon's Shi'a Muslims supporting the Ba'athist government of Bashar Al-Assad,whose Alawite minority is usually described as a heterodox offshoot of Shi'ism. Killings,unrest and sectarian kidnappings across Lebanon resulted.
Michael Sarris is a Greek Cypriot economist and politician. He earned his B.Sc. in Economics at the London School of Economics &Political Science (LSE). He later continued his studies in the United States where he obtained his Doctorate in Economics at Wayne State University.
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Ziad-Alexandre Hayek was Secretary General of the Republic of Lebanon's High Council for Privatization and PPP from 2006 until he was nominated to be President of the World Bank in February 2019. In 2014,he was made Officer of the National Order of the Cedar,the highest state order of Lebanon. He is married to Soheila Hayek,the global president of YMCA.
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