MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISES IN LEBANON

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PrefaceThis is the first country report carried out under the project on “Promoting Competitiveness in Microand Small Enterprises” (MSE). ERF has selected the MSE report of Lebanon to be the first producedin the series, to acknowledge the efforts by the country team to fulfill their obligations despite theprogressing tension in the region. This is yet another testimony to the resilience of the Lebanesepeople.Initiated in 2000 by ERF, the project’s main objective has been to expand the knowledge on thissector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the ultimate aim of designingrelevant policies and specific programs to help this sector fulfill its enormous growth potentials.Constituting an average of 95% of the number of enterprises in the region, it is presumed thatpromoting this sector will have a positive spill-over effect on the economies of the region.Discussions on the results of the project have pointed to an emerging consensus that it will be filling aknowledge gap related to the micro and small enterprises sector in the MENA region. Policies andstrategies designed to promote this sector have not been adequately targeting their needs, and thus thisproject is considered to be of great relevance to the policy making process.Specifically, the main contributions may be summarized as follows:• The database gathered through the project based on field surveys is considered unique, as to thenumber of enterprises covered (18,000), and the information produced, including information onthe enterprise, the entrepreneur and the household. A special focus on women entrepreneurs havebeen made throughout the survey. This mine of data will undoubtedly provide backgroundinformation that enables policy makers to design relevant policies.• The “Policy Briefs” gives a concise summary of the outcome of each country study and highlightsthe recommendations reached based on the analysis.• The current Country reports series is prepared based on the findings of the surveys, detailedinformation about the performance of the enterprises, determinants of success and prospects forthe future are given. Special focus on the status of women entrepreneurs is also made.• The Synthesis report will have a comparative analytical approach of the case studies of the fourcountries. This report will asses the MSE sector in the four countries and will draw relevantpolicy recommendations for the region.It has been evidently shown that promoting this sector could contribute to the solution of theincreasing unemployment problem in the region, and a means to alleviate poverty through incomegeneration. The spillover effects that this sector if properly developed will positively affect thedevelopment of the countries concerned.This report on Lebanon represents the outcome of a large and long research process. The field surveygathered 3,000 micro and small enterprises and was performed under difficult conditions. The nonavailabilityof (or access to) the basic national database constituted one of several challenges that theLebanese team have managed to overcome. I quote the comment of the Peer reviewer of the report: “Iam particularly impressed with the careful design of the survey particularly in the absence of astratified random sampling technique given that the survey had to develop the database of thecomponents of the sector in the first place”. If anything, there is no doubt that the database gatheredon the MSE sector in Lebanon will make a substantial contribution and would fill a gap at the nationaland regional level.The analysis of data and the background research undertaken by the Lebanese team, under thesupervision of Dr. Kamal Hamdan was the subject of a national debate during the Micro and SmallEnterprises final conference that took place in December 2005.Representatives of the Lebanese government, private sector, academics, banking, social funds,consultants and media participated in the conference and expressed their interest in the outcome of theproject and the database in particular.
By presenting this unique, serious and up to the standard work, ERF is hoping to have satisfied twoimportant objectives of its own mission: to contribute to filling a knowledge gap in the region; and tohave contributed to drawing targeted policies by reaching out to the policy makers.Samir RadwanManaging Director
Page 1 and 2: ERF RESEARCH REPORTProject on “Pr
Page 3 and 4: III.17.3 Clusters------------------
Page 5: AcknowledgementThis is the first re
Page 9 and 10: The overall environment in Lebanon
Page 11 and 12: 3.6 Major ConstraintsThe most promi
Page 13 and 14: The distribution of entrepreneurs a
Page 15 and 16: project includes a field survey, th
Page 17 and 18: the same probability to be selected
Page 19: Table 8: MSE Distribution per Gende
Page 23 and 24: person enterprises is an evidence o
Page 25 and 26: Figure 3: Distribution of MSEs Acco
Page 27 and 28: Most of the surveyed MSEs operate i
Page 29 and 30: The survey also showed that larger
Page 31 and 32: The percentage of MSEs that are not
Page 33 and 34: Finally, it appears through the rel
Page 35 and 36: practiced. Nevertheless, value adde
Page 37 and 38: III.12.6 Value-added and technology
Page 39 and 40: of age compared to 19% of male entr
Page 41 and 42: Table 26: Age (current) Distributio
Page 43 and 44: The entrepreneurs opted to change o
Page 45 and 46: Table 34: Mixed Income and Sector o
Page 47 and 48: • Acquisition of modern technolog
Page 49 and 50: frequency distribution do not show
Page 51 and 52: do not belong to a cluster achieve
Page 53 and 54: III.17.11 Working Hours per WeekPro
Page 55: • Effective quality assurance mec

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