Carmen Chamorro

Libya: open to foreign investment and the global tourism sector

Benghazi, the new Oman

In the city of Benghazi, a group of Spanish journalists has witnessed the prevailing security in the east of the country, as well as the enthusiasm and desire for recovery of the Libyan people. The frenetic pace of the reconstruction work lasts 24 hours a day. There are enough resources for the whole country to live in prosperity. The city is in constant motion. The implementation of an entire strategic redevelopment plan, scheduled to take two to five years, is not only allowing all sectors of the economy to take off, but is also helping to foster social cohesion. 

The terrorist acts of the last war destroyed critical infrastructure: bridges, schools, hotels, universities and large buildings, not to mention the fact that hospital capacity was reduced from 3,000 to 600 beds. Benghazi is an exceptional enclave that will soon be the focus of all tourism investment. An elaborate plan, with its own stamp of identity, which will make Benghazi, a new Sultanate of Oman, of low-rise housing and light colours, a region of attraction for investors and tourists. 

The latest UN reports show that the Presidency of the House of Representatives has made public the decision to appoint the Board of Directors of the Central Bank, and the full Board held its first meeting on 10 November.

For the Mayor of Benghazi, Alsaquer Emran Abojwary, the security parameter is the first step to influence the infrastructure of the tourism sector and to publicise the list of emblematic cities, declared by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites: Shahad, Souss Lybia, Loubda, Soubrata and Ghdmass, ‘We are preparing the Benghazi coast to receive the flow of tourists, an attractive area for businessmen’. The Mayor announced that work on the new airport west of Benghazi is 23% complete, with more than 20,000 hectares of connectivity between cities and expected to accommodate a flow of 5 million passengers per year. ‘We are trying to make this airport the most important airport in North Africa. We are in the first phase of development, both in the construction of hotel chains, as well as in the calculation of routes and good roads that allow the accommodation and rapid movement of visitors’.

As it is, thanks to the national reconstruction fund, Benghazi's uprising will take another two years. Barcelona could inspire the mayor's office to design its own city, albeit with its own identity. For the mayor of Benghazi, the entire government is working on security, the restoration of the country and the development of a selection of top quality hotels, along with luxury resorts for business trips and holiday breaks. Libya has spectacular tourist sites, such as Cyrene, a former Greek colony, located in what is now known as Shahhat, the gateway to the green mountain and desert. ‘But we need to lift up the country to be able to implement projects in this area. The city has to be attractive, first for living and then for tourists,’ says Alsaquer Emran Abojwary.

It is common knowledge that Libya is divided into two governments after the end of the war in 2011: the Government of National Unity (GNU), recognised by the United Nations and the international community, which controls the west of the country. The east and part of the south, 70 per cent of the territory, including the oil wells, is under the guardianship of the Benghazi parliament, led by Osama Hamad. Putting an end to the current division and walking together, in national reconciliation, is a purpose to which the Libyan foreign minister alludes, as the interests of its citizens prevail above all else: ‘we have made you, peoples and tribes, to know one another’, says one of the verses of the Koran, mentioned by Dr Abdul Hadi Al-Hawaij.

Author: Carmen Chamorro

Director of the CIP/ACPE and graduate in International Relations and Business Tourism from the SEI.