Qatar donates $20m to Lebanon's army for soldier salaries

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Qatar has given Lebanon's army $20 million in a continuation of a $60 million aid package from Doha to the military, announced in 2022, to boost soldiers' salaries.

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) said the funds would be distributed equally among military personnel.

The average salary of low-ranking soldiers has plummeted to less than $100 a month after the onset of Lebanon's economic crisis in 2019. The national currency has lost about 98 per cent of its value against the US dollar on the parallel market, while inflation soared.

The military has unofficially tolerated soldiers taking additional jobs, such as driving taxis, to boost their income.

Lebanon is facing the prospect of a full-blown war with Israel as the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah engages in near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire with the Israeli military.

The LAF is not engaged in the conflict but it has a presence in the south and a soldier was killed by Israeli shelling in December.

Lebanon and Israel do not have diplomatic relations and are technically in a state of war, although the government in Beirut has said it does not want another conflict.

The cross-border fire has run in parallel to Israel's war on Gaza, where nearly 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas, a Hezbollah ally, triggered the conflict on October 7 with attacks that killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel.

Hezbollah has said it will cease its attacks once the war in Gaza ends. However, with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip proving elusive, the exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border have been expanding in scope and intensity.

One suggestion to alleviate tensions and defuse a potential broader conflict has been to deploy more LAF soldiers to south Lebanon.

Last year the US announced it would give $72 million in cash assistance to the Lebanese government to support the salaries of soldiers and the police.

Washington is a key donor of the LAF and its 80,000 members, providing more than $3 billion in military aid since 2006.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”