What is Lebanons current economic situation, spanning from corruption to all the other issues?
Sami Nader: The political class is corrupt. Up until the early 1970s, the country was in a way a rich country. Lebanon got the benefit of all the excess cash. Another factor of success was the fact that we are the only Arab country with a liberal, open economy and free trade. In my opinion, it is not liberal enough. All the other Arab states are state-controlled economies. For example, look at Dubai. It is in the process of opening up. Due to the excess of cash, the political system etc we were well positioned for an economy inflow. Still, our fundamentals were not strong enough and we are still dragging. Our productivity is low because we did not invest in productive projects and infrastructure. We import more than we export. However, our monetary balance is in excess because we have more currency entering the country than leaving it. We have a high-performance banking sector. The banks secrecy worked very well. Any Arab could come and open an account in Lebanon without being known. I
