Since civil war broke out in Libya, British business relations have been at a virtual standstill. With a loss of £1.5bn revenue, primarily in oil and a virtual standstill in exports worth between £377m and £1.29bn, the UK was feeling the economic pressure. Now it appears as though business relations will resume in the coming weeks which will aid both countries.
Pre-war UK – Libya relations established under Gaddafi in a bilateral trade agreement may soon be honored by the NTC, National Transition Council as soon as next week or the week after. Rebels in charge of the country since overthrowing Gaddafi are open and even willing to once again establish a trade agreement, not only with the UK but with other countries in the Eurozone including French and Italian enterprises.
If pre-war contracts are once again honoured as the NTC states it has every intention of doing, this will be a boon to the troubled economies throughout not only in the UK and the Eurozone but in Libya as well. All assets have been frozen in Libya since February of this year and most European companies pulled out of the troubled region at that time. Although a date was not set when those assets would be released, the NTC indicated that they indeed would be when the time was ‘appropriate.’
As recently as six months ago, Libyan oil production was at about 2% of global output, which when relations are re-established will do much for the Libyan economy as well as for British, French and Italian companies having interests in the region. A specific date is not set at this time, but once Royal Dutch Shell and BP are able to meet pre-war production of about 1.6m barrels daily, and continue with their oil exploration ventures in the region, this will work in some way to help the struggling economies in the west.
