McDonald's is not the only famous international brand attracted to Lebanon. Virgin has just signed a local franchise for a 2,000 sq m megastore in Beirut's city centre, which is being slowly rebuilt from wartime destruction. Across the city in west Beirut, shoppers can buy their clothes at Next and stock up on fruity shower gel at the Body Shop before relaxing with a cappuccino at Starbucks. BHV supermarket, Monoprix department store, Spinney's supermarket and the Sports Cafe are also thriving as franchises. With a franchise and a local operator, international companies minimise the risk of their exposure.
Foreign companies have reasons to be wary.
Economic growth rates have plummeted from 7 per cent in the early 1990s, after Lebanon's civil war, to minus 1 per cent last year, and the government seems unable to control a budget deficit that reached 51.8 per cent of expenditures in the first five months of the year. Further depressing demand, says economist Marwan Iskandar, is monthly emigration of around 15,000 people. Such invisibles fuel the ostentatious Lebanese ability to enjoy the moment, which is best savoured along the seaside Corniche in Beirut. Whatever the country's darkening economic clouds, Lebanon's party goes on, at least for now. And the McDonald's on the seaside Corniche, opened by Ronald McDonald in a red BMW coupe, has, of course, valet parking.