Lebanon's 2012 Draft Budget Draws Fire over New Taxes (Economy‪)‬

The release of Lebanon's 2012 draft state budget earlier this month has evoked a wave of public indignation and condemnation from the country's labor unions as well as from politicians and merchants mainly because it proposes a series of taxes that are bound to further worsen an already sharp socio-economic crisis. The announcement of the draft budget coincided with negotiations involving the General Workers Confederation (GWC), the country's largest labor union, the Labor Ministry and business leaders over the GWC's demands for better social benefits and salary increases. The GWC said this week it had suspended a nationwide strike, originally planned for Oct. 12, after an 11th hour deal brokered by the government had met some of its demands for salary increases.