Raoul Nehme (; born January 20, 1956) served as the Lebanese minister of economy and trade from 2020 to 2021.

Life

Nehme went to school at Collège Notre Dame de Jamhour and studied in France at the Ecole Polytechnique (engineering with a major in economics) and Mines ParisTech (engineering with a major in scientific management).https://www.bankmed.com.lb/BOMedia/subservices/categories/News/20180608130233095.pdf He is a part of the Greek-Catholic community.

Career

In January 2020, Nehme was appointed minister of economy and trade by Prime Minister Hassan Diab. He joined the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

as President's nominee, though he is himself independent. Prior to his appointment in the government, Nehme worked in the banking industry. He has experience handling several establishments in crisis: * BLC bank (Lebanon) board member (2008–2015) and general manager (2010-2015), after it was put in receivership by the BDL due to mismanagement * T-bank (Turkey) chairman of the board, was brought in after the latter was severely affected by the economic crisis. * AstroBank (Cyprus) chairman of the executive committee (2017–present). He was also a board member of USB bank, a predecessor entity to AstroBank. *

Bankmed Bankmed SAL (Arabic: بنك البحر المتوسط ش.م.ل; formerly ''Bankmed SAL)'' is a Lebanese bank, established in 1944, owned by the holding company ''GroupMed''. It is one of Lebanon’s top five banks by both assets and deposits, an ...

(Lebanon) executive general manager (June 2018 – Jan 2020). Nehme is the president and co-founder of NGO Jouzour Lebanon (meaning "roots of Lebanon"), an environmental NGO dedicated to reforestation.

Minister of Economy

Nehme's nomination as

minister of economy A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

came as Lebanon was experiencing a double

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and economic crisis that resulted in a default on March 9, 2020. The general situation was further complicated by the coincident

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. As minister of economy, Nehme introduced measures to protect the consumer by limiting abusive price increases, banning the exportation of critical medical equipment and implementing measures to mitigate the propagation of the

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

References

External links

Bank Med Nomination

Jouzour Loubnan (roots of Lebanon)

Lebanon's new government
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nehme, Raoul Economy and Trade ministers of Lebanon Lebanese Melkite Greek Catholics École Polytechnique alumni Mines Paris - PSL alumni 1956 births Living people Free Patriotic Movement politicians