Update January 2000: Lebanon

Several events can be reported concerning the promotional activities :

1. EXPE actions

A mission of experts from the Rand Corporation was invited by the association of Lebanese Harvard Alumni. A series of contacts were arranged with high level officials concerning the possible contribution of Harvard educated Lebanese managers to promote foreign direct investment in Lebanon. Some recommendations were made and reported by the press during October 99.

At this occasion, it was reported that the government was preparing a draft concerning the creation of the Lebanese Information Technology Steering Committee. This Committee would act as consultant to the Prime Minister on matters related to IT. It will be composed of 15 members, twelve Lebanese residents and three non resident Lebanese. The main bodies that will participate in formulating action plans to be discussed by the Committee before they are submitted to government are: the ministries, the professional associations especially the Professional Computing Association (PCA), the Universities and the companies operating in Telecommunication and Information Technology.

2. COMM actions

A conference on "The Lebanese Information Infrastructure: Vision and Promises" was organized by the University of Balamand (www.balamand.edu.lb) on November 5^th and 6^th. The objective was to present the national information infrastructure according to a variety of definition and to various perceptions. One such perception is that the NII is a National Network of Networks that achieves the aims of its Administration. The Telecommunication infrastructure being one of the major elements affecting the information revolution experienced in the country. The participants stressed the point that the growth and development of the telecommunications infrastructure for the information transfer in Lebanon requires the government and the private sector to reconsider the way they acquire and deploy the infrastructure in the support of the different businesses. A certain level of interaction and cooperation should exist in order to improve the information service delivery. New mechanisms and new paradigms must be adopted by the government in order to improve the ability to work with the industry, the commerce and academia.

Special presentations and sessions were devoted to topics such as :

• the Lebanese state perspective by a high ranking official of OMSAR,
• arabization and the Internet.

3. PUBL actions

A local magazine ‘PC guide’ dedicated to computer hardware and software has reported extensively in its November issue on the status of automation in the government agencies. It traces the process back to an initiative taken in 1993 with the creation of OMSAR (Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform) (www.omsar.gov.lb).OMSAR had to bring the adminsitration back to operational level. This meant rehabilitating damaged offices and acquiring basic necessities needed to get things going. The next phase was the reform phase, which meant the introduction of new technology, as facilitator of administrative reform not vice-versa. This infrastructure was put in place for most of the governmental agencies. Local area networks with state-of-the-art active components (hubs and switches) and other vital technologies were placed in most of the ministries. OMSAR also deployed technical equipment, servers, PCs, printers, and scanners in most of the agencies where they thought it was needed.

With new technologies introduced, employees had to learn how to use them so OMSAR trained around 1000 civil servants on the basics such as Word, Excel, and Power Point. Others, who were designated as technical support staff, were given more intensive training on higher level applications such as Network Administration. These employees were put in charge of the IT departments in their respective ministries agencies.

4. COMM actions

A series of banking seminars took place during the last quarter of 1999 focusing on how the banks in Lebanon have to prepare for the application of on-line banking. One of the seminars offered by the company Computer Information Systems (CIS), the local representative of HP in Lebanon (www.cis.com.lb), focused on e-banking. It appeared from the presentations made by professional bankers that the major actors in the Lebanese community of banks were close enough to what their counter part in Europe were doing. From the interviews conducted by some journalists with participants, it seems obvious that Lebanese banks are intending to implement or in some cases, extend the implementation of e-banking in the near future.

It was remarkable to see in this seminar, how in just a few years the Lebanese banking sector has been able to catch up with technological developments around the world. Some banks have on-line real time services through ATMs, PC-internet connections or telephone lines (Phone banking).

AUDI Bank (www.audi.com.lb) announced a new service intended to young people. This service called Net Account is bank AUDI’s latest innovation of personal accounts to serve its clients better and attract new customers, especially the youngsters, and provide them with tailor made accounts. This Net Account is assorted with:

• free unlimited access 24/24 hours to surf the Web at leisure through a free Starter Kit offered by the bank.
• the Net Account is always within the customer’s reach via all branches, ATM’s, Dial AUDI phone banking service.
• free access to the bank’s internal banking service to consult the accounts balances and obtain services like the daily reports.

Apart from the banking aspect of the operation, the bank had announced a special loan formula to help the customer acquire a brand new COMPAQ Pentium III PC. With this offer combined with the free internet access, it is believed that a target of 10 000 accounts is achievable in one year time. New comers to Internet use could be around 30% of this figure.

SODETEL (www.sodetel.net.lb) a mixed capital company (50% Lebanese government, 40% France Telecom and 10% Telecom Italia) is announcing an upgrade of its services in the telecommunications sector.

Libanpac which is a national network for data transmission X25 has been installed in 1991 by presidential decree N⁰ 4645 dated march 88. It is offering telecom links services among different branches located all over the Lebanese territory. The press release is stating that by end december 1999 an upgrading of the network using a frame replay structure will be operational. This structure will allow Sodetel to provide new access protocols (IP, Frame Replay, X25, X28) at rates reaching 2 Megabytes.

Internet services through Sodetel will also be enhanced through an international link right to Bagnolet in France where France Telecom has its Intranet backbone connected to the european and american networks.