Libya announces vast plan for privatization

The Libyan prime minister Shukri Ghanem considered that Libya had prepared a large scale plan for privatizing state owned factories and companies and the plan is to be extended until 2008.

Ghanem said in a press conference held in Tripoli on Saturday that this plan covers "privatization of mineral industries, especially iron, steel, chemical industries, and factories to assemble trucks and buses, textile, and shoes companies, and state owned farms."

The Libyan prime minister did not explain the number of companies to be included in the privatization plan. In September Ghanem said that the number of these companies will be more than 300.

Ghanem said that the privatization plan will be applied in three phases until the year 2008, noting that "the Central Bank will sell shares of these companies and factories until a stock market is founded."

He stressed that this plan aims at "improving the national economic performance and the living standards of individuals through expanding the base of property owners." Ghanem, an economist, was appointed in June as head of the government, adopts the policy of economic openness. He stressed that his country seeks to open up to foreign companies especially oil companies. In June this year, Libya's Leader of the Revolution Colonel Muammar al Qathafi called for the privatization of the sector of oil, banks, public companies, and airports.