The Mediterranean Investment Forum "Med Invest 2009" was held in the Lebanese capital Beirut on 20-21 February 2009; under the patronage of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, and with attendance of more than 500 business leaders and representatives of investment funds from Europe, the Mediterranean and the Arab World. Attending the inauguration was the country's Tourism Minister Elie Marouni as well as a number of envoys to Lebanon.

Also attending was former Minister of Commerce and Industry of Kuwait Yousif Al-Zalzala. Chairman of the Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal Group Raouf Abu Zaki, said that the Arab Economic, Development and Social Summit recently held in Kuwait helped issue a number of strategic decisions that aid Arab economic cooperation, including the unified Arab customs' agreement which begins as of 2010 to be implemented wholly in 2015. Abu Zaki underlined the need for increased Mediterranean-Euro-Arab cooperation in light of today's dire state of the global economy.

Head of Union of Mediterranean Confederations of Enterprises (BusinessMed) Jack Sarraf, another organizer, said that a defense mechanism was essentially required to protect against unemployment in the region. The only solution, he said, is to create further investment opportunities thus further jobs for people.

According to the Governor of the Bank of Lebanon Riad Salama the Mediterranean region contains 450 million people who hold a total income of $8000 billion with financial transfers to the region amounting to around $71 billion.

These numbers do not offer ground for any development as a result of the poor distribution of these subsidiaries; 38 percent of these people live in the European side of the Mediterranean who control 80 percent of this amount. For this reason, Salama proposed further effective investments in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries.

Med Invest 2009 organized by BusinessMed, BusinessEurope and Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal, proposes to provide the three following ingredients: Investment needs confidence: Projects of emerging countries, technology: Technology of the European Union and finance: Financing of the Gulf.