Lebanese Republic 
Speech of the minister Raed Khoury at the National Energy Conference
Read in Arabic
It is not a secret the difficult economic situation reflected by the slow GDP growth rate, the public debt exceeding $75 billion dollars not to mention the debt ratio that exceeds 150 percent of the GDP and the unemployment rate that reached 25% in addition to others indicators.
I will not enter into details; however what matters to us is the fact that these figures tend to be cumulative since 25 years and they are not the result of one, two or three years; but it goes without saying that these questions take more than one or two years to be solved. It is to mention that the government did not approach this topic for years nor did it prepare a statement about the debt’ rising and ways of reducing this increase by adopting a specific approach. The Government is increasingly indebted and spends money on infrastructure and that is how our economy goes on. In this regard, I do not blame anyone or hold it responsible for this issue given the circumstances that prevailed at that time. The truth is that the economy is only doing well in two major sectors: the banking and the real estate sectors in addition to some seasonal tourism that depends mainly on our Arab brothers. Still, it turned out that these efforts are not enough because the Government’ economic policy did not depend on sustainable productive sectors that ensure the economic recovery’ continuity. Moreover, the infrastructure expenditure was not fully assumed and the electricity was not ensured 24/24 not to mention the huge costs that the electricity charged the treasury with more than $30 billion dollars, i.e. 40% of the public debt with a huge increase in the corruption and waste rate in the Government and its departments.
