National Employment Office (NEO) launched yesterday, under the auspices of the ministry of labor, Selim Jraysatee, the electronic system for trading job vacancies on its website. This renovated e-system links job seekers to employers for free, and contributes to lowering the cost of accessing information by both job seekers and employers, and will create opportunities to match the suitable candidates to the right job.
The “e-vacancy trading system” is the fruit of 4 years of collaboration between ILO and NEO, with financial support by the government of Canada through CIDA. You can visit the e-system through accessing the NEO website http://www.neo.gov.lb; which is available in 3 languages; Arabic, English and French.
Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Diyar, Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Nahar 26 January 2013

The Lebanese Council of Women (LWC) organized last week a press conference headed by its president Jamal Gabril in which she renewed the rejection of all forms of discrimination against women, and reiterated its demand for a 30% women quota in parliament, the participation of women in national political dialogue, for granting them their right to pass their nationality to their children, and expressed its endorsement of the law to protect women from domestic violence. The press conference was held in the presence of PM Gilbert Zwayn, ex-minister Mona Ofeish, LCW past presidents; Linda Matar, Aman Shaarani, Iqbal Doughan, and representatives from several civil and women associations.
Gabril also indicated that Lebanese women who are still fighting for their social and political rights, remain marginalized and absent from national, political and citizen actions, adding that the absence of women from decision making positions have acted against the adoption of the law of protection against violence and resulted in the continued denial of her right to pass her nationality to her family in accordance with her constitutional right of equality with man. Gabril concluded that the present discussions around electoral laws are far from being to the benefit of Lebanese citizens; on the contrary they lead to solutions that actually exasperate the problems.
Source: Al-Nahar, Al-Mustaqbal 26 January 2013

Kafalat provides three types of loans through local banks.  The highest loan size is 600 million LBP or its equivalent in hard currency and is repayable over seven years with a 6 to 12 months grace period.  These loans benefit from a subsidy from the Central Bank secured by the national treasury and amounting to 7% of the loan amount with some exceptions on the interest rate.  Access to a Kafalt loan is contingent on the submission of a feasibility study.
Al Safir published a report on Kafalat’s loans in 2012 and noted a drop in number of some 19.42% (1025 projects supported in 2012 compared to 1272 supported in 2011).  This decrease is essentially due to the economic slowdown as a result of regional and local instability which affected most economic sectors in the country notably agriculture, industry, and tourism according the statistics of Kafalat and Credit Bank.
The total value of loans reached some 207.91 billion LBP or corresponding to new investments of approximately USD 128.45 million. In terms of targeted sectors, the highest percentages were recorded in agriculture 38.73% and then industry 28.34 %s, while tourism accounted for 177 projects representing 17.27%. On the other hand, 72 projects, worth some 14.32 billion LBP or USD 9.50 million were implemented in December 2012 whereas 90 projects were implemented in December 2011 of a net worth USD 13.06 million. Figures indicated that loans to the agriculture sector declined by 124 projects, from 521 projects in December 2011 to 397 projects in 2012, which represented a fall of 23.80 %.

Source: Al-Safir 23 January 2013