Libya Report

Chairman of JOTUN Abdel Menem Abdel Aziz talks about the real-estate sector in Libya. As the chairman of JOTUN, he agrees that the the sales are up: "Definitely, our sales returned to pre-revolution levels immediately after the revolution ended. This year we have so far noticed increases on the same level as we used to have prior to the revolution. Thus as far as our business is concerned, JOTUN is back on the track."

He sees potential hurdles in the difficulty to take decisions."Politicians who are running the current interim government find it difficult to take decisions; they would rather see the situation move on without big decisions being made that would leave a mark on future developments. Therefore most of them are reluctant to take decisions and this is what could slow the progress of Libya. Otherwise, the budget is there, the money is there, the projects are needed ― the power and the need is there and thus nothing should stop Libya from going ahead with these projects," he says.

The future look bright for the real-estate sector; "We have had almost a freeze on the development of Libyan housing sector and infrastructure for the last 35 years or so. We have a lot to catch up with. There is an enormous task of construction ― be it in relation to the housing or infrastructure in Libya. Therefore I would say that the number you have just stated (US $140 billion) is a bit conservative. We have a lot of clusters to build, a lot of infrastructure to build. The shortage of housing is enormous and it has to be covered, as well as the industrial clusters," concludes Mr. Aziz.