A Message From The Chairman

Justice… Reforms… Lebanon first

Lebanon is known through centuries to have given birth to Saints and Miracles, we still wonder whether our Economy can generate Miracles today in order to prevent our dear country from falling in the abyss.

The geographical position of Lebanon is by itself quite unusual, also considering its ancient archaeology and history and having been subject to so many invasions throughout the years, all this has forced the character of Lebanese, to overcome their fate and defend itself so no single invader could last long on its land.

We, thus, grasped the methods to develop our character and added a wide knowledge, education and culture. The area of Nahr el kalb is a witness of the civilizations which crossed Lebanon and the culture that they left to us without forgetting the culture that Lebanon has transferred to Europe during the Europa-Phoenician period. Nowadays the whole world is engulfed with difficult problems to solve and Europe considers Lebanon an important barrier to all civilizations behind – if that barrier falls, Europe can be invaded by other civilizations and its identity will suffer.

This is again a miracle for Lebanon holding the interest and the help of Europe for a fair justice and performance enabling Lebanon to get access to the European aid pledge of 11 Billion US dollars following the Paris Conference. We hope our politicians will be capable to respect this blessing and administrate it in the right places.

We also hope that our politicians will help and protect entrepreneurial youth and offer programs to all great minds and respect them as Lebanese human assets. The programs should consider the knowledgeable people but most importantly the creative minds to benefit from the value that can be created.

Therefore our duty remains to proceed with local solutions stopping the galloping corruption and getting our laws implemented withholding any immunity. The main solution I have been recommending, since few years back, is the separation between the powers of justice and politics to overcome the heavy corruption as justice has become so melded with politics.

To grow our economy towards developed country conditions and attain our deserved international presence within the developed countries that respect justice, we should adhere to the universal economic rules and the international human rights.

Within this adverse geopolitical situation and the appalling internal corruption, our group of companies has struggled to reach the results attained in 2018, maintaining our leadership in the most selective activities. We reviewed our brand portfolio and focused on a brand mix that defines quality rather than quantity.

Our sustainability through corporate and family governance has created room for innovation with no dearth of ideas. We went further in our corporate governance plan and created executive committees as well as audit and corporate governance committees to help the board plan a solid strategy and a clear vision for the coming years.

Our skillful technical teams and engineers worked very hard this year granting our partners full satisfaction whether in the medical field, the banking sector or the watch after sales business in order to have the minimum down time or delay in repairs for equipment or watches.

With our deep rooted passion of sourcing motivation and nurturing a culture of innovation, we have created a strategy that is so different from our competitors in every business field. We gained market share and were able to work on specialized financial programs that enabled us to create financial solutions to our partners and clients allowing us and them to grow and develop, which led us to reach very interesting results this year within the environmental problems surrounding us.

We have registered growth this year and wish to express our thanks and gratitude to each colleague who exerted his efforts, took personal initiative and worked with his team, implemented the rules of productivity and compliance and struggled to reach the performance we targeted.

We are very proud to announce the launch of our performance appraisal new system. We also unveiled our latest website version allowing e commerce and click and collect as well as HR application submissions and after sales service tracking. We have also reached very high impressions on our social media networks and started collaborations with new influential and leading partners in this field.

We are looking forward for a great year 2019, in which we will invest more in human resources, digital marketing, customer relationship management, corporate social responsibility, after sales service procedures as well as family governance.

On behalf of the board of Directors of Tamer Freres, we wish you a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year 2019!

Jean Tamer

Chairman and CEO