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Lebanese banks flourish as ailing world looks on
Oct. 21, 2009
BEIRUT: A healthy suspicion of the subprime market appears to have paid off, as Lebanese banks flourish in the face of the global economic crisis. A recent report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on the Lebanese banking sector said that Lebanese banks are continuously attracting inflows of deposits, which in current times of crisis, has left them among the few banks of the world enjoying abundant liquidity surpluses.
The report, published by Bank Audi’s Weekly Monitor, noted that one cannot but point out to the evident immunity of Lebanese banks, which is to a large extent the result of the central bank’s proper foresight in barring the country’s banks from investing in subprime.
The EIU praised the strong asset growth of Lebanese banks in the first half of the year, at a time when many banks across the globe and the region have seen the crisis take its toll on their balance sheets.
Central bank figures for the year’s first half show that banks operating in Lebanon had total consolidated assets of LL156.2 trillion at the end of June, more than three times the size of GDP: a growth of 17.2percent over the same period in 2008.