Libya is taking its place as North Africa’s new business hub

The image from the years of the Arab Spring do not, however, represent Libya today. The north African country’s promising progress and positive story of growth and development is often overlooked.

Take the Julyana Free Zone. Established in 2021 near Benghazi on the eastern shoreline, the free zone has fast become a model success story for the country’s trade and commercial potential. Since the start of 2026, the port alone logged 371 cargo vessels, a new record, following a record-breaking year in 2025. The newly built Benghazi International Airport is due to open later this year, whilst the American headquartered IT firm Kaleris have begun delivering a smart solutions upgrade to the port facilities. The zone’s undoubted success is acting as a focal point for concentrated, long-lasting foreign investment.

Nearby, a joint partnership between Turkish steel producer, Tosyali, and the Libya United Steel Company, owned by Libyan industrialist Ahmed Gadalla, offers an example of sizeable foreign investment inflows. The project will see the construction of the world’s largest direct-reduced-iron plant, producing 7.5 million tonnes per year. It is expected to create 7,000 new skilled jobs when it becomes fully operational next year.

This is the kind of development that will enable a flourishing private sector, benefitting from Libya’s inbuilt advantages as a place for heavy industry. To demonstrate the ambition of the project, Gadalla has also spoken of plans to construct a dedicated export port for the plant. This is just one of numerous examples of similar industrial projects that are starting to spring up across the country. These, in time, will create a burgeoning, increasingly resilient and prosperous Libyan private sector.

Libya’s recent economic story has been one of emergent but impressive success. The country is currently in the ‘top tier’ of GDP per capita across Africa at $14,000, approximately twice the continent’s average. Thanks to its prolific oil reserves, Libya also enjoys some of the lowest fuel and energy costs in the world, has minimal sovereign debt, and foreign currency reserves far in excess of even the continent’s largest economies.

Resolving the ongoing division between Tripoli and Benghazi is a priority for the Trump administration, which is taking active steps to unify the country – perhaps sensing the opportunity of getting a resource-rich economy on Europe’s doorstep firing at full throttle. Certainly, the ingredients to build Libya up into North Africa’s leading commercial hub are all there. Its geographic location as a nexus between Europe, the Middle East and Africa means it is better positioned than most to become one of the region’s economic powerhouses.

Establishing a larger, more robust and sophisticated private sector will be key to achieving sustained development. Currently, only 15% of the Libyan workforce is employed by the private sector, whilst private commercial enterprises contribute only 20% of Libya’s GDP. For a nation with aspirations towards becoming the business hub of North Africa, these numbers must increase.

As a nation sitting on some of the world’s largest oil reserves, Libya must escape its ‘resource curse’ and outsized dependence on the state. Many places around the world – Dubai, Vietnam – have successfully, and sustainability, achieved a decisive shift from state to private sector dominated economies. The result has been an explosion in economic prosperity at both an individual and national level, driving growth prospects that will far outlast any oil bonanza.

Libya stands at the start of this journey. Significant moves are already underway to ensure a greater role for the private sector in delivering economic growth, making Libya well positioned to become the commercial hub of North Africa. Its low-cost energy, optimal geographic position and skilled workforce is attracting private capital geared towards manufacturing and developing heavy industry, creating a lasting, prosperous private sector like never before. For those wanted easy access to Europe, Africa and the Middle East built on a strong economic foundation, Libya is increasingly the answer.