The road running along the coast in Ain al-Mreisseh, in Beirut. (Illustrative photo by Philippe Hage Boutros/L'Orient-Le Jour)
The decline in commercial activity continued in 2025, following a very difficult 2024, according to the index developed by the Beirut Taders Association and Fransabank to measure, each quarter, the level of retail sales, which is calculated from data collected from a “representative sample covering 45 sectors of the sale of goods and services.”
While the base 100 of this index was originally set in the last quarter of 2011, the authors of the report decided, given the recent major events experienced by the Lebanese economy, to review their calculations and adopt the figures from the fourth quarter of 2019 as base 100, while maintaining the same methodology and calculation techniques.
The BTA/Fransabank index fell from 31.37 points in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 30.01 points in the first quarter of 2025. It recorded a sharp annual decline, having reached 42.84 points in the first quarter of 2024 (-29.9 percent in a year). However, this level remained well above its worst since 2019, namely 16.93 points, which was recorded at the end of the first quarter of 2023 during the last period of strong instability of the Lebanese Lira.
According to the report, these negative results contrasted with the succession of positive developments in Lebanon, “starting with the election of the president, closely followed by the formation of a new government composed of highly qualified and competent personalities.” This was also accompanied by optimism about the “long-awaited economic recovery, with monetary, financial, economic, social, and business plans and programs, opening the door to new negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but also to the restoration of natural ties with the Gulf countries, donor countries, and lending countries.”
But “the continuous decline of the index, despite the positive developments and the return of expatriates during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, indicates that consumer activity remains primarily dependent on the political, financial, and monetary conditions in the country, and that it remains subject to some degree of uncertainty regarding short-term developments,” it added.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.