Doing Business in Libya: Main Challenges

Apart from the security issues, Khalil Masoud Mahfud, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tripoli Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, discusses some of the major challenges when doing business in Libya.

“By the Will of Allah, I think there will be no challenges after the revolution, because we met huge enthusiasm in regards to energizing the local economy after having serious discussions with officials from the government. The Minister of trade and economy in Libya is a well-known businessman who used to be the head of the Chamber of commerce and industry. Ever since he was assigned to his new position, he made it a top priority to review the old legislation and decisions which hindered investments. So he formed a committee to study and evaluate the Law number 23 which organizes the economical activities within the country. This committee is working currently to make the needed amendments, and more specifically to modify the decrees related to that law. Now this may push us to review certain parts of the law despite the fact that we think it is a good law yet it needs more facilitations and amendments that will give our economy more freedom that benefits the Libyan or the foreign investor. So we already started preparing to deal with any challenges if any, but we assure investors that we do have plenty of investment projects, we also have the Law number 9 for investments which encourages investments and privatization, and we think it’s a good law. So I don’t think there are any challenges as long we have the will to solve them,” explains Mahfud.

Furthemore, Mahfud adds: “Now, the biggest challenge we face now is the freedom in the money flow just like any other country, we also have a challenge when it comes to the shares of a foreign partner and the type of the partnership with such partner, also the inability of the financial institutions of the state when it comes to supporting the private sector. That’s why we are trying now to convince the financial institutions of the state to support the private sector with the funds they have. These are the challenges we are facing now, but in order to make the investors feel more secure, we assure them that we are working with the government to address and deal with these challenges by the Will of Allah.”