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Libya: Country Looks South
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East African Business Week (Kampala)
24 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Last week, Libya's president Mummmar Gaddafi ended his official four-day visit to Uganda at the invitation of President Yoweri Musevei. He was in Kampala to address the Afro-Arab Youth Conference but also to open Sub Sahara's biggest mosque, only second to the Hassan II mosque in Morocco's capital, Casablanca.
The mosque has a seating capacity of 15,000 worshipers. It was built by Gaddafi.
The opening of the mosque attracted many big names in the region including President Mwai Kibaki , Paul Kagame, Pierre Nkurunziza and Abeid Karume (Zanzibar). Others were, Abdullahi Yusuf (Somalia), Ismail Omar Guelleh (Djibouti), Toumani Toure (Mali), Lansana Kouyate (Guinea-Conakry).
The main attraction during this event was obviuosly Gaddafi. Having flown in earlier with four jets, and earlier cargo flights that included his personal cars and equipment, the excitement in Kampala surrounded his entourage and pageantry.
Gaddafi though playing to the gallery about Islam and Christianity and life presidency for revolutionaries, there was a veiled sense of economic power hitherto undisplayed by the north Africans. Why?
With a population of just over 6 million, Libya has one of the highest GDPs on the continent and competes favourably in world rankings.
Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa (followed by Nigeria and Algeria).For instance in 2006, it had an estimated 8.1% growth of GDP.
Big companies like Repsol YPF, OMV, Total, Norsk Hydro, Lasmo,ConocoPhillips, Eni amoung others, have made huge discoveries of significant oil deposits of light, sweet crude in putting Libya in the top OPEC countries with large reserves.
In fact the 2007/2008 UN Human Development Index rankings put Libya amoung in the top group of High Human Development rankings, 56 in the world, and second in Africa below Seychelles.
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With the petro dollars flowing in, the country set up an investment arm, The Libya Africa Portfolio(LAP) with an investment fund of up to $5billion.
In a few years LAP has made significant entries in the region's telecom, oil, housing, textile, banking and hotel sectors to mention but a few.
In fact one of LAP's subsidiary Tamoil won a contract to the Eldoret-Kampala pipeline construction. Gaddafi certainly made headlines in Kampala for statements on political and religious positions which did not adhere to the religious strata. A little "comical" by some. But beneath that veneer of politico-social tickle, is a growing presence and thrust of LAP's expansion here. This is a new era of Afro-Arab investment where north meets south.
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| Copyright © 2008 East African Business Week. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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