We visited one of the busiest ministries in the country that is undergoing a massive rebuilding process, Abubaker Al-Ghawi, Minister of Housing and Construction. His task is enormously big and the minister hopes that the Serbian companies can take part in this process
We have seen the Tripoli Third Ring Road today. How is the situation in Libya nowadays and what is the state of infrastructure after the civil war?
We are proud actually to have you here, thank you for coming and visiting Libya. Libya is not as it used to be or as it used to hear about it. Libya is safe. Now we have started doing our construction projects, especially those big and strategic projects such as the project that you have visited today. It’s a big one, to be honest with you. It’s with 24 kilometers length and 100 meters wide. The Tripoli Third Ring Road is almost halfway finished.
How many people are going to be housed in these buildings that are very close to this ring road? I’ve seen many, many new constructions.
The buildings are not the part of our project, it’s different. They are private property but they are appearing around the Ring Road since it is very convenient to live there.
But they told us that the government is building all the new ministries in one spot?
That’s true. And by chance, the highway splits this compound in two halves. It actually crosses the compound of the government’s building.
So we heard for this big infrastructure project, you cooperate with Egyptian companies, the Italian ones for the airport, with Brazilian and Libyan joint venture for a project for this Ring?
Actually, the companies who are doing this project are big Egyptians companies. But the project is not a new one. The project first started in 1989, after Lockerbie. Then according to the European sanction on Libya in that period, that had not been lifted until the 2008. And then again it all stopped after the Revolution, in 2011. And after the Libyan revolution, we have restarted this project actually last year. But hopefully, it will be finished by the end of 2025.
I would like to ask you about the constructions on the beach. There are three towers and I’ve seen the beaches being managed for the swimmers and guests. Are you planning to make this beach area, Corniche area, more built?
Well, actually, as a government, we have aid to improve all of the Tripoli coast. Now it’s not even the Tripoli, from Janzur until the Tajoura. They have given this project to the Triple Peace company. And now at this moment, we’re working in Hayy Al-Andalus. With this government, we have started many big projects, as you can see. We have built the roads, and many of them are actually under construction. They are connecting towns, especially in the south. And we have also working here in Tripoli, Benghazi, Jdabiya, Sirt. We’re working all over Libya. We have started all of this since 2021.
And the rest of Libya, which is not coastal, like Sahara, the southern parts, are there any infrastructure projects or ideas for the future?
As I told you, the projects are not only in Tripoli, or on the coast. We are building things all over Libya, especially in the south. Because the south has been dispossessed for quite a long time. And also, the foreign companies start to come back again to Libya to work in here, because the situation has changed. Now there is no war, there is the stability, as you see…
Are the Serbian companies participating in the reconstruction of Libya?
The Serbian companies were here before 2011. I know during Yugoslavia and Tito, that there was huge cooperation. We used to have very massive cooperation with the Serbian companies, especially in the era of Tito. And now, since we started working with the new government, we started to reactivate the old projects that have stopped since 2011, and we started to work to enforce these projects. The minister of foreign affairs has announced a back to life plan for Libya, which includes all these projects that stopped since 2011, and includes the Third Ring Road that you have visited today. A lot of companies have been worried that if they stop working here, they won’t be able to get their financial payment. But with the company that worked on the third ring road, we already started a bank account with 4 billion Libyan dinars inside that account, and the company started working and taking its payment step by step from that account.
And we are very determined to make Libya advance again. Libya is still in a virgin state, sort of, and it needs a lot, a lot of people. And the rehabilitation of Libya is not just about the big cities. We’re starting from Ras al-Jadir until Msaad, and every city in Libya. The projects in the south of Libya are about 6 billion dinars, and they are still under construction. With the massive roads and constructing that reach 340 km per road. This is per one road, and there are a lot of them.
We’re working on the rehabilitation and sanitation system in the south. These cities, the sanitation system, they are already rehabilitated and they are working. We have British, German, Malaysian companies, we even have Chinese and Japanese companies working here, apart from the companies from the Arab countries, and especially from Tunisia and Egypt. There are a lot of companies that are already here. And for the projects that you visited today, the advisor company is an American company.
We would like to welcome the Serbian companies, since the Serbian companies are big companies, they have a lot of experience, especially in the field of roads and infrastructure. And they have a lot of experience, and they did work in Libya before. We’re looking forward to work with the Serbian companies, they are very famous for their road work and for their infrastructure work. And we are hoping and wishing that you can come back and we can work together again.
Do you have any Serbian company already present here?
There is in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, there are Serbian companies, but in the Ministry Housing we have are no Serbian companies as partners. We are hoping that you can come back and start working here, because we are looking forward to that. Our income in Libya is improving, we’re going to reach 2 million barrels of oil per day by the end of 2025, so even the financial income of the company is stable and it’s getting better. So we’re looking forward to doing business with you, we’re looking forward for Serbian companies to give back so we can work together on making the country better.
Do you have any plans to visit you or the Prime Minister of Serbia to have some kind of official conversation regarding this?
There is nothing planned or programmed, but we are open to it. We have a plan together, the Libyan Embassy in Belgrade and our embassy, and we talked here, two days ago the Libyan Ambassador was at the Foreign Ministry, talked to the Deputy Minister for Economic Cooperation, we are planning and we’re starting working in organising one economic forum, the Serbian-Libyan Economic Forum in Tripoli, and also the presentation of the Serbian industry in Tripoli. Inshallah, in January or February, we will see.
We already established 12 billion dinars for sanitation and water supplies, and we know that Serbian companies are very efficient and very good in these aspects, and we’re looking forward and we hope that they will be able to come back to Libya. We hope that you can bring companies so they can be our partners in this.
