Lebanon Central Bank enables Lebanese Start-Ups to tour Silicon Valley

Last week, the Lebanese-American Chamber announced that it will be organizing a study tour to the US headlined “Silicon Valley Campaign for Lebanon’s Start-Ups”.  The said tour is taking place between September 12th and 17th in collaboration with Start-Up Megaphone.  It includes field visits to the most important international US companies namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google (c.f. previous news : http://bit.ly/2ctvmfw).  In an interview with Al- Diyar newspaper, the president of the Lebanese-American Chamber Salim Zeeni noted that the Chamber has succeeded in laying Lebanese foundation in the international capital of business and finance, New York, and that is for some years now.  Now, the Chamber is trying to penetrate the capital of ICT through Silicon Valley where it hopes to have a pied-à-terre especially that the Lebanese have high capabilities in this field.  Zeeni added by saying that the indicator for this is the fact that the Lebanese have set up knowledge companies following the Central Bank decision # 331 and which is a first step that will build for excellent initiatives in the start-ups sector in Lebanon.  To be noted that the Lebanese Central Bank had issued memorandum 331 on December 2013 which allows banks and financial institutions to invest up to 3% of their own funds in start-ups and business incubators in the field of ICT, as part of its aim to boost economic growth and curtail unemployment. (Al Diyar 11 September 2016)