By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 25 April 2013:
A conference was held today at the Corinthia hotel on the role of the private sector . . .[restrict]in the development of the housing market.
The conference was organized by BNP Parisbas Sahara bank and was supported by the Ministry of Housing and Utilities under the banner “The Future Vision for Supporting the Private Sector in Limiting the Housing Problem”.
In attendance were the Deputy Prime Minister Awad Barasi, the Minister of Housing and Utilities Ali Sherief, a representative of the Central Bank of Libya, a representative from the Urban Planning Department, leading businessmen and heads of construction companies.
Omar Soud, the Acting Head of BNP Parisbas Sahara bank said in his opening remarks that “one of the main challenges facing Libya was its housing crises. Despite their efforts for decades, the state did not support the banking sector in playing its role in developing the housing market together with the private sector”.
Soud went on to add that “even recently, the rights of the private sector in this area was also usurped by foreign companies who received financial support from the state at the expense of the Libyan private sector.”
The Acting Head of BNP Parisbas Sahara bank went on to call upon the Libyan sector to develop itself. “The Libyan private sector”, he insisted, “must develop itself in a transparent and clear way so as to enable the Libyan banking sector to offer it its support.”
“I call upon the government to help the banking sector and the Libyan private sector to ease and facilitate letters of credit and bank guarantees procedures so as to ease the development of this area”.
There then followed nine presentations from the various parties concerned with the housing sector, including on: planning, sustainable development, banking for housing, unplanned buildings, private sector support for housing development, and the property registry. [/restrict]
