BEIRUT: Finance Minister Raya Hassan said Wednesday that Lebanon was facing the challenge of attracting investments to stimulate growth in addition to securing additional revenues to be able to finance the government’s expenditures while at the same time putting an end to the increase in the public debt.

“Lebanon is faced by a great challenge and has to preserve the growth reached over the past few years without opening the way to a further increase in the public debt while increasing the national economy’s resilience to any future difficulties or crises,” she said.

Her remarks came during a conference held at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) palace aimed at discussing the challenges faced by Arab countries to develop the investments and the steps taken by the Lebanese Finance Ministry to improve the performance of the various sectors in Lebanon.

Hassan said that, in order to achieve the goal mentioned above, the government has started to work on two main strategies. The first aims to create a business-friendly environment while the second requires the adoption of an agenda for the development of the various productive sectors in the country.

“The government is currently working on improving Lebanon’s rank when it comes to easiness of doing business,” she said. “It is also working on improving the performance of the various productive sectors and removing all the obstacles facing their growth.”

She added that the Finance Ministry was working according to these new guidelines saying that it perceives the private sector and business owners as strategic partners and not as taxpayers. “The ministry has started to work on improving the various tax laws and it is doing so in cooperation with international organizations and the private sector,” she said. “The ministry is also working on facilitating the procedures which contributes to facilitating the work of tax collectors.”

Hassan said the ministry was also working on new measures aimed at increasing people’s commitment to paying taxes to eliminate tax evasion. “We are also trying to improve the tax assessments on real estate by adopting new measures for better judgments in this field.”

She said the Finance Ministry had already taken various steps that would guarantee a better work environment and easier procedures. “We gave the green light to individual company owners to turn their businesses into joint stock companies in return of a 5 percent on the difference resulting from the re-evaluation of fixed assets,” she said.

Hassan said the ministry has also decreased by 95 percent the fine imposed on late tax payers. However, she continued, harsh measures would be taken against these people.

Hassan said these steps and many others contribute to encouraging the investment activities in the country. “These steps along with other reform measures in the tax administration have improved Lebanon’s ranking when it comes to ease of paying taxes,” she said.

Lebanon ranked in 34th place globally, and in ninth place in the MENA region on the Paying Taxes indicator according to a report issued by Byblos bank a year ago. A firm in Lebanon performs 19 tax payments per year compared to 22.9 in the MENA region and 12.8 in the OECD countries.