LEBANON. There are no country-specific provisions. LITHUANIA There are no country-specific provisions. MEXICO
LEBANON. For the purposes of any account(s) or other contractual relationships with Citibank N.A, Lebanon Branch, the taxes which may be deducted or withheld by Citibank pursuant to Section 7 include taxes imposed in the specific and limited circumstances under the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986 or any associated regulations or other official guidance ("Code"). Citibank, N.A Lebanon Branch is a branch of a banking corporation organized and existing under the laws of the United States and, as such, is subject to Lebanese laws and notably to the Banking Secrecy Law of September 3, 0000, xxx/xx xxxxx xxxx xx xxx Xxxxxx Xxxxxx which do not contradict the imperative provisions of the Lebanese laws. You hereby understand and accept that the national and state laws and regulations of the United States might be applicable to You as long as they do not contravene the imperative provisions of the Lebanese Law on Banking Secrecy and such other imperative Lebanese Laws. Consequently, if You are a U.S. Person (United States Person, entity company or institution), as defined by the Code, at the date of initiating the banking relationship with Citibank, or if afterwards You become a U.S. Person, or are identified by Citibank as a U.S. Person, as of the date of initiating the banking relation with Citibank, You irrevocably release Citibank from any and all losses, claims and liabilities resulting from Citibank’s complying with such laws and regulations concerning You and the Transactions You effect using the System, and in particular you lift the banking secrecy obligation concerning such Transactions under the Lebanese Banking Secrecy Law (i) in relation to Citibank’s compliance with the Code and providing Your information to local or international authorities, including the United States Internal Revenue Service, and (ii) for the purpose of the disclosures referred to in Section 12(b) above.
LEBANON. Key takeaway: Lebanon has made some progress toward financial inclusion, but non- banks have not yet been authorized to provide DFS, limiting innovation. Lebanon faces serious challenges to the expansion of DFS, foremost an economic crisis and high-cost mobile services. Total Population: 6.8 million (2018) Rural Population: 11% Account Ownership (2017) Mobile subscriber penetration Internet penetration 66% 78% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Unbanked 55% Digital Payments Banked 45% Received or Made in the Last Year (2017) 45% Lebanon has been in a state of economic emergency since September 2019. Until the past few years, the banking sector was a strong pillar of the Lebanese economy despite political and security instability. Lebanon has historically received substantial remittances from the expansive Lebanese diaspora (Xxxxxxx 2019). Lebanese workers in the Gulf contributed about one-fifth of Lebanon’s GDP and between 43 and 60 percent of remittances in 2015. However, remittances have been declining in the past few years, largely due to tensions between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Remittances to Lebanon decreased by 7 percent in 2017 and are expected to stagnate or fall (Alami 2018). As the government accumulated debt, the banking sector expanded to 425 percent of the country’s GDP (Xxxxxxx 2019). Lebanon’s other main revenue-generating sectors, real estate and tourism, are also not faring well (Alami 2018). These declines, combined with decades of waste and poor governance in the public sector as well as tremendous debt and diminishing trust in the banking sector have led to a financial crisis, street protests, and the resignation of the Prime Minister in October 2019. Health sector overview In Lebanon, for-profit and nonprofit private health entities dominate the health care system. Primary, secondary, and tertiary care, including specialized and general medical services, are available through the private health sector. Most providers who practice in Lebanon and over 90 percent of laboratories and pharmacies are part of the private health sector. However, regulation of both private and public services through the Lebanese government is limited. The Ministry of Public Health plays a significant role in health care with contracting through both government and private facilities. Slightly under half of Lebanese citizens are covered by health insurance schemes, with the remaining uninsured citizens able to use services provided by the Ministry of Public Health. Th...
LEBANON. The Government of Lebanon has ratified the Instruments amending the Constitution and the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (Minneapolis, 1998). The International Telecommunication Union confirms that the deposit of this instrument with the Secretary-General was registered on 1 April 2004. Instruments amending the Constitution and the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union Marrakesh, 2002
LEBANON. The Government of Lebanon has ratified the Final Acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference, Istanbul, 2000. The International Telecommunication Union confirms that the deposit of this instrument with the Secretary-General was registered on 1 April 2004. Special Agreement Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Republic of Croatia, France Repuplic of Hungary, Italy, Principality of Liechtenstein, Republic of Lithuania, Luxembourg, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Republic of Poland, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Romania, Republic of Slovenia, Confederation of Switzerland The attention of the Administrations is drawn to the fact that an Agreement was signed on 28 November 2003 in Berlin by the representatives of the above-mentioned Administrations, on the coordination of frequencies between 29,7 MHz and 39,5 GHz for the Fixed Service and the Land Mobile Service.
LEBANON. Lebanon hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees per capita (1.5 million Syrian refugees) and also an additional 18,500 refugees from Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan and other countries, as well as more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees under UNRWA’s mandate. The presence of such a large refugee population, in a small country struggling to maintain its own delicate demographic balance and regain its pre-crisis economic growth, is increasingly affecting the protection space and influencing calls for, and measures geared towards, a speedier return of the refugees to Syria. There is pressure on infrastructure, services and the environment, as well as competition for jobs. The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan 2017-2020 (LCRP) seemed to provide a framework for an integrated humanitarian-development response in which the needs of the refugees are – to the extent possible, based on national laws and policies – met by strengthening the capacity of national institutions and organizations to deliver services. The aim is to mitigate the impact of the refugees’ presence by supporting host communities and vulnerable Lebanese. At the same time, a robust, complementary humanitarian safety net of services and assistance needs to be maintained in view of the Government’s policy against integration and the consequent limitations on refugees’ ability to work and be fully included in national programmes. There are also limitations on humanitarians’ ability to support sustainable interventions in, for example, the shelter sector. UNHCR coordinates the LCRP alongside the Ministry of Social Affairs and UNDP, maintaining leadership on the refugee component. In this environment, refugees are facing increasing protection risks, with a lack of legal residency leading to the risk of arrest, deportation and eviction, sexual and gender-based violence and child abuse on the rise. Needs in basic assistance, as well as health, shelter and WASH, are also increasing. Refugees’ humanitarian needs and vulnerabilities will remain high due to cumulative factors in this protracted situation, where they are still largely dependent on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs and stay resilient against exploitation and other risks. With a government estimate of 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 18,500 refugees from Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan and other countries, as well as more than 200,000 Palestinian refugees under UNRWA’s mandate, Lebanon hosts a considerably large number of refugees. Hosting such a grea...
LEBANON. The earliest examples of modern Lebanese migration date to the 1850s with Xxxxxxxxx xx-Xxxxxxxxx, who migrated to the United States. However, scholars consider the 1880s to be the beginning of a larger migration phenomenon. A few decades after al-Bishalani set foot in America, Xxxxxx Xxxxx asserted that “we could not be able to live without emigration, but if emigration became too vast, it would be the end of us” (Chiha, 1966, p.114). After five waves of emigration, Lebanon today faces just such a dilemma. The First Wave: 1880-1914- According to Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx, migration from Lebanon to the New World began to intensify during the second half of the 19th century, when Mount Lebanon was the scene of several regional and international conflicts that led to civil wars, notably between Maronite Christians and the Druze in 1840 and 1860 (Issawi, 1993, pp.13-31). Beirut’s population, which had quadrupled between 1830 and 1850, doubled between 1865 and 1920, as a result of the internal exodus from the over-populated Mount Lebanon area (Xxxxxx-Xxxxx, 1983, pp.2-3).
LEBANON. Since its inception Lebanon has been a sending country as a result of perennial political instability and lopsided economic development. However, since the 1990 end of the Lebanese civil war, it has increasingly become a country with a “special migration pattern” (ESCWA, 2007). It has emerged as a ‘receiving’ country, accepting significant flows of both Arab and non-Arab migration. Migrants and refugees from countries such as Iraq, Syria, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Ethiopia have come to Lebanon in substantial numbers, causing what the Lebanese government usually considers a ‘burden’ on the labour market. Armenian and Palestinian refugees, as well as migrants from a variety of ethnic minorities in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, came to Lebanon a long time before 1990, and have settled in the country ever since. Lebanon, as a diverse sending country, underwent a progressive switch after the civil war, whereby substantial brain drains occurred, and replacement migration resulted in flows of migrants from neighbouring and Asian countries to arrive in Lebanon. This phenomenon is referred to as the 'replacement migration paradigm', moving from emigration to a large influx of migrants after the civil war. As a result of the war, Lebanon witnessed considerable voluntary and compulsory displacement of its citizens. Although there are no official figures available, it is generally accepted that the Lebanese Diaspora is quite vast, including hundreds of thousands of Lebanese – some in temporary exile, others seeking jobs and becoming permanent emigrants. After the civil war, when the violence calmed, Lebanon offered a number of job opportunities that many Lebanese in exile were wary to return for, questioning the safety of repatriation. Most of these jobs involved manual labour, which many Lebanese were not attracted to. Additionally, success abroad pushed many even further from Lebanon. Consequently, the departure of many Lebanese – not only the educated – during the civil war led to an influx of foreign migrant workers who were willing to take the chance to come to Lebanon and earn a living (Xxxxxxx, 2009). Lebanon is a multi-confessional republic with around 4 million inhabitants. It is characterized by a sectarian power- sharing structure that arose as a result of its history, which is filled with sectarian and communal power struggles. Consequently, Lebanon has struggled for years on end to deal with human loss and brain drain as a consequence of continual emi...
LEBANON. There are no specific laws relating to the protection of migrant workers’ rights in Lebanon. There are, however, certain provisions in the constitution and some labour laws that apply, in principle, to migrants. The Labour Code of 1946, the primary Lebanese labour law, includes non-Lebanese. However, Article 7 of the Code excludes domestic workers, thereby denying protection and benefits to migrant workers that are otherwise offered to Lebanese nationals. In order for migrant workers to enter the Lebanese labour market, they must first secure a work permit from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Presidential Decree 17561, of 18 September 1964, specifies that non-Lebanese seeking work must obtain prior approval from the Ministry of Labour before traveling to Lebanon (Amnesty International, 2007). Securing a work permit in Lebanon is expensive and time-consuming. As a result, most employers reject the process of obtaining a work permit, and hire foreign migrant workers through the sponsorship system, otherwise known as kafala. Kafala structures how a Lebanese employer may ‘sponsor’ a migrant worker for the duration of a contract (Philippines Today, 2006). The system insists that a one-time, US $1,000 bond must be paid to the Central Housing Loan Bank for each foreign employee, as a “registration of sponsorship” (Philippines Today, 2006). In migration literature, the term “remittances” generally refers to monetary transfers in cash or goods. However, both the United Nations (UN) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have defined the term "remittances" more broadly. The IMF has stated that remittances include three categories of data, the sum of the three compromising the “total remittances” that could be transferred to the country of origin. The first concerns workers’ remittances: transfers in cash or goods from migrants to friends and family in the country of origin, usually occurring often, and based on a kinship network, where the migrant spends over a year abroad (Kapur, 2004). The second consists of compensation to employees: the salaries and wages of individuals living abroad, often seasonal or short-term workers, as well as those working in diplomatic, foreign, and international missions. The third includes migrants’ transfers: capital transfers of financial assets by migrants as they move from one country to another, usually for more than one year. The UN has defined remittances in a more formal way, claiming that they consist of any “fin...
LEBANON. The interviewed vulnerable individuals reported types of casual labour activities included cleaning of public areas and infrastructure improvements. Cleaning activities were reported by some to be problematic for two reasons: 1) the work was perceived as demeaning and led to drop outs in participation and 2) it led to negative experiences, with some Syrian refugees experiencing abusive and condescending comments from members of the public (especially in Xxxxx Xxxxx). Several complaints were raised about mis-information about the Casual Labour Initiative (CLI) in both the Bekaa and Xxxxx, leading potential participants to be confused about goals, type of work, payment procedures, duration of the project, intended beneficiaries etc.; this confusion led to both an increase in drop-outs and anger upon completing the works. Furthermore, some participants complained about their inability to provide adequate feedback, either because no contact numbers were provided or because feedback was solicited in public and thus discouraged candid evaluations (privacy, coercion). Some participants complained that there was no health insurance plan in case of accidental injuries on the job. Some Syrian refugees in both the Bekaa and Xxxxx Xxxxx complained of exploitation and discrimination in food stores, where they had to pay higher prices than Lebanese nationals for the same goods. They also complained about coercion to buy goods from a select number of aid organization partner stores, some of which blatantly exploited the refugees’ plight for profit in the absence of true competition. Syrian refugees in Xxxxx Xxxxx also noted discrimination in healthcare, with pharmacies at times refusing to provide them with medicine, or hospitals charging higher prices for medical services. Refugees in Xxxxx Xxxxx also reported cases of miscarriages and deaths when refugees were denied access to hospital services if they could not front a 100% of the bill. both SC staff and Syrian participants spoke of an emerging black market where Syrian refugees sell their food vouchers for less than their monetary value in return for cash, apparently to cover rent and healthcare expenses, which are not (fully) covered by existing aid schemes. Lebanese participants across locations complained of high levels of unemployment, and blamed Syrian refugees for unfair competition (willingness to work for lower wages while receiving international humanitarian aid). Many expressed suspicions towards Syrian ref...
