The Minister of Economy in the Government of National Unity, Mohammed Al-Huweij, called for the need to change some legislation to attract investments, as well as the contribution of commercial banks to financing, stressing the necessity of having a clear economic vision.
The Minister added, during a speech at the Economic Diversity Conference, that Libya’s problem is in how to manage resources, especially since Libya has a strategic location, pointing out the possibility of exporting 25 million tons of cement annually if attention is paid to this industry.
He talked as well about interest in transit trade via a road extending from Misrata to Niger, in addition to investment in agriculture, saying: “When will the gross domestic product rise from 60 billion dinars to 250 billion dinars? This requires security and political stability in the country. For more than 60 years, Libya has relied on one commodity, which is oil, and now there is a need to diversify the economy to achieve added value.”
The scientific conference on the economic opportunities available as an alternative source of oil, which is held and supervised by the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Al-Zaytouna University, was launched on Saturday at the Institute of Arts Technologies in Zawiyet Al-Dahmani in Tripoli, under the slogan “Towards a Future Vision for Diversifying Sources of National Income." The conference is held in two days.
The conference was attended by the Minister of Economy and members of the House of Representatives, as well as a number of academic and economic experts. It aims to search for possible economic alternatives to diversify national income, highlight the investment opportunities available to diversify sources of income and their financing mechanisms, benefit from local, regional and international experiences in the field of managing diverse sources of income, and contribute to finding solutions to the political and legal challenges that hinder the creation of economic alternatives to oil with economic feasibility.