The private sector’s economic activity remained firmly in contraction area in June, as revealed by Lebanon’s PMI released by Blominvest Bank today. BLOM PMI stood well below the 50 mark, which separates economic growth from contraction, with the quarterly average reaching its lowest level since inception. This has reflected another downturn in the private sector’s business conditions during the six month of year mainly resulting from the substantially low levels of output and inflows of new orders. Commenting on the June 2016 PMI results, Marwan Mikhael, Head of Research at BLOMINVEST Bank, said: “The uncertainty surrounding the political deadlock in the country is causing foreign direct investment and capital inflows to fall resulting in a large balance of payments deficit for the sixth year in a row up to April 2016. In this context, private sector activity continues to decline as witnessed by the quarterly average PMI that posted 44.4 with a soaring number of surveyed companies reporting a decline in their outputs and new orders. The bleeding of the economy is slowly eating up the resilience of the country.”