From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Thu Jan 07 2010 - 15:42:27 EST
Excerpt: "For instance, the Libyan African Investments Company has
recently purchased the Tunisian hotel chain Abou Nawas and is now
looking partners to build another luxury hotel in Tripoli and another
partner to operate two gold mines in Eritrea."
Libya's Billions in Search of Projects
The North Africa Journal
06 January, 2010 06:37:00
Libya is moving fast to catch up with oil-rich Gulf nations that have
set up lucrative investment funds to acquire assets around the world.
However, Libya's entry into the global investment community is not new.
Its first and probably most known fund, the Libyan Arab Foreign
Investment Company (Lafico) was already set up some 28 years ago.
Today the country has six such investment instruments. They are the
Libyan Investment Authority, the Economic & Social Development Fund, the
Social Security Investments Fund, the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio,
the Libyan African Investments Company, and the Libyan Foreign
Investments Company.
But what makes this industry interesting is the fact half of these funds
were set up after 2005, as an effort for Libya to channel its oil
revenue into foreign markets. The latest such funds are the Libya Africa
Investment Portfolio, which has a capital of $8 billion but is
headquartered in Switzerland. The Economic and Social Development Fund
was established to manage the money allocated by the central authorities
to the Libyan people within Kaddafi sponsored oil revenue sharing
program. Finally the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) is a holding that
supervises and oversees all investment funds and controls between 50%
and 75% of the $135 billion managed by the nation's funds. The fund is
getting bigger each year since Libya's policy to automatically channel a
portion of the country's oil revenues. For a small country like Libya,
one would thing the investment fund sector is saturated. Not for the
Libyans. Today, Investment Authority and the Central Bank are teaming up
to set up yet another fund.
With a growing clout and expanding resources, it is no surprise that the
Libyans are getting a lot of attention from those seeking money, and the
French are the first ones knocking at the door. The French business
development agency Ubifrance, acting on behalf of French corporation has
been rather proactive courting the Libyan fund managers. On June 15,
2009 it organized a forum to enable meetings between the Libyans and
French executives.
The Libyans are establishing these funds apparently to avoid a piling up
of foreign currency reserves above and beyond a reasonable level to
manage inflation and erratic currency exchange fluctuations. Instead,
they are now keen on spending their money in joint projects and equity
acquisition. Many key projects in Europe, Africa, Latin American and
even Libya have already been finalized and others in their final
planning phases. For instance, the Libyan African Investments Company
has recently purchased the Tunisian hotel chain Abou Nawas and is now
looking partners to build another luxury hotel in Tripoli and another
partner to operate two gold mines in Eritrea. In neighboring Tunisia,
the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company has been active there since
its inception in 1981 with it acquired equity in the Tourgueness
Corporation, now a majority owner.
http://www.north-africa.com/naj_economy/finance_banking/322.html
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