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Business in Lebanon continues to decline
5-5-2017
The business activity of private sector companies in Lebanon continued to decline with the start of the second quarter of the present year, posting 47.5 in April, a reading below the 50.0 mark which separates growth from contraction, according to BLOM PMI report. Yet, the index has shown improvement from March’s 4-month low of 46.9, pointing to a slight slowdown in the rate of deterioration. April indices indicated a fall in demand on Lebanese goods and services, linked to weakened inflows of new orders, albeit at a slower pace from the previous month. The deterioration, which included another reduction in new orders from abroad, has affected the size of unfinished operations or workloads at Lebanese companies. The said decline in workloads caused further decline in the level of output and production across the private sector during April, extending the current sequence of decline to 4 years, according to BLOM Invest report. But despite this, the rate of deceleration of the business activity was the weakest since January. April also recorded decline in employment and purchasing activity of respondent companies, while an increase in inventory levels continued notwithstanding the drop in the volume of purchases (though the pace of accumulation was the lowest in a period of 4 months). And while noting the drop in the average prices of goods and services for the 25th month in a row in April, BLOM Invest has shown that the rate of decline was shy, in fact the lowest in 15 months.
(Al Akhbar, May 5, 2017)
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- العربية
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