Italian firms, investments hit by Libyan crisis...
Prior to the Libya crisis, Finmeccanica group was involved in updating the country's railway network, building a technological border monitoring system against the entrance of immigrants from neighboring African countries and had just opened a site for assembling Agusta helicopters.
Another critical sector is infrastructure, probably the most affected by the suspension of the Italy-Libya Friendship Treaty, added La Repubblica.
Leading Impregilo group was among the winners of an ambitious project aimed at constructing a 1700 kilometers desert highway cutting across Libya and connecting Tunisia to Egypt.
The project was part of a 5 billion euros colonial compensation Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had granted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Friendship Treaty.
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http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/7305417.html China rail builder suspends Libya projectsSHANGHAI (AFP) – State-run China Railway Construction said on Wednesday that its billions of dollars of projects in Libya were in jeopardy after it was forced to suspend them as the country is rocked by an uprising.
"Due to increasing turbulence in Libya and attacks against some of the company's camps in Libya, all projects of the company have been suspended," it said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
"Given the uncertain situation... the preservation of equipment and materials on site and subsequent development remain unclear," it said, adding that most of its employees in the strife-torn country had been evacuated.
The company has three projects in Libya with a total contract value of $4.24 billion. Only about a sixth of the work, or $686 million worth, has been completed, according to the statement.
The remaining $3.55 billion worth of contracts accounted for 2.3 percent of the company's total outstanding contracts globally, it said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110302/wl_asia_afp/libyapoliticsunrestchinarail_20110302110111 Libya: From Weapons To Gas, Russia Fears Losses“The Libyan crisis is costing us four billion dollars,” said Sergej Čemezov, director of the arms export monopoly that exports weapons, confirming estimates published last Monday by Kommersant”.
Qadhafi’s collapse would entail the loss of two billion dollars worth of contracts and purchase for ant-aircraft missiles and some aircraft totaling a further 1.8 b billion.
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However, in Russia they are also worried as the Kommersant newspaper revealed some of the leading figures having business with the Qadhafi regime.
There is Gazprom, which has licenses to explore at least four hydrocarbon deposits and which bought from the Italian ENI some 178 million dollars, shares in the Elephant Projects. The Russian railway company Rossijskije Železnyie Dorogi, engaged since 2008 in building a 2,2 billion dollar project for a Bengahzi –Sirt road. Then there is Tatneft, an energy and infrastructure group working to expand electricity and infrastructure.
On Thursday, at the end of a meeting to discuss Libya, Russian and Saudi government representatives warned against any sort of “external political military interference”.
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http://www.eurasiareview.com/world-news/world/libya-from-weapons-to-gas-russia-fears-losses-04032011/ So Libya is still no.1 in Africa on the Human Development Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_IndexI wonder how this thing will develop, I'm surprised to learn that sanctions in the 80's-90's didn't impede Libya's growth
In the 1980s, Libya was sanctioned by the UN after the Gadhafi regime was widely believed to be behind some of the most gruesome terror attacks.
Ironically, those sanctions only strengthened Gadhafi's grip on power, and did not much impede Libya's economic growth. In fact, by the mid-1990s, the country briefly joined the world's most developed countries, according to the UN Human Development Index.
The 1980s sanctions did produce devastating results, but only in neighbouring Sudan, where the three Darfur provinces of Africa's largest nation had been, historically and culturally, very closely connected with the Libyan economy. Shutting down border crossings between the two countries devastated the economies of the Darfur provinces and gave rise to a shadowy economy that thrived on smuggling and crime, supervised by the Janjaweed militia.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/civil-war-looming-in-libya-117302288.html