Remarks by Ghassan Hasbani – Technology Panel
Beirut, Friday, June 26, 2015

I would like to congratulate the Ministry of Telecommunications and Ogero for the work they are doing despite the difficulties faced by them for over a decade. What has been done is great considering the legal framework and economic challenges facing the government.

However, we need to recognize that Lebanon is still far behind his peers in the world in terms of telecommunications sector development.

While advanced technologies are being deployed, internet speeds remained slightly above what prevailed ten years ago.

While the Lebanese population is among the highest adopters and best users of technology with over 70 percent smart phone penetration, prices remain high and investments in the infrastructure intermittent

According to the world economic forum's Network Readiness Report, Lebanon ranks last in the world in terms of the presence of the telecom sector in the government vision. Hopefully, the government will adopt, support and fund the 2020 strategy without creating any hurdles in order to improve that ranking.

Lebanon remains among a small minority of countries, including former communist economies, where the telecom infrastructure, particularly the mobile one, is still a government monopoly.

I fully support the Minister's strategy for 2020 and I call for the full implementation of law 431/ 2002 that governs the establishment of an independent regulatory authority and privatization of the mobile assets with a partial privatization of the fixed network.