By Sami Zaptia.
London, 18 October 2018:
A LD 250 million Libyan private sector real estate investment fund was announced in Tunis yesterday.
The announcement came at the two-day Libyan annual Real Estate Development Forum held at Tunis’s Laico hotel, owned by the Libyan Investment Authority.
This would be the first private sector real estate investment fund in Libya which organizers said would be Islamic- banking compliant.
The organizers said that in the next few months they will announce the start of the initial public offering so that every Libyan citizen can contribute and buy shares in the fund.
The event was sponsored by Libya’s state Economic and Social Development Fund (ESDF) and the private sector “HB” group, with the participation of Libya’s Minister of Planning of the Faiez Serraj Government of National Accord, Taher al-Jahimi, and Tunisian Housing Minister Mohammed Arfaoui and a number of businessmen from Libya and Tunisia.
The forum discussed the current state of Libya’s real estate market and ways of reactivating it through the private sector.
Moreover, ways for the private sector to cooperate with the state sector in completing the implementation of the country’s stalled 550,000 housing-unit projects were also discussed.
The view by participants was that with Libya’s insecurity, there is a low likelyhood that foreign contractors would be able to resume their stalled projects in the short term.
Meanwhile, Libya is in desperate need for a new private sector housing industry, an industry that had been destroyed by the Qaddafi regime.
Participants said that Libya’s future real estate sector should be based on the private sector – in order to supply the country’s acute housing deficit.
Moreover, in view of the fall in international crude oil prices and Libya’s oil production, participants felt that the Libyan state will not have the budget to complete its stalled projects in the short term – and more likely even in the medium to long term.
They believe that cooperation between the private sector and the state sector through PPP partnerships could offer a way forward.
The event will also hold an exhibition with the participation of a number of real estate companies, with representatives from more than 100 institutions and approximately 400 participants, the organizers reported.
