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Lebanon’s ranking in the World Bank’s annual report Doing Business, which measures ease of doing business in 189 economies, slipped from 121 in 2014 to 123 in 2015, a sign that the country did not make any serious efforts in introducing reforms and improving the business climate.

Ghobril said that Lebanon’s ranking is to be blamed on the lack of reforms and not on the regional conflicts. The report also added that 11 out of 20 economies in the Middle East and North Africa (55 percent) implemented at least one reform making it easier to do business in the past year, 21 in total – more than the region’s annual average of 16 reforms over the past five years. The area with the largest number of reforms implemented by the region’s economies was Getting Electricity (4), followed by Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, and Trading across Borders (3 each).