TRIPOLI (AFP) — Libyan authorities announced on Sunday a strategic partnership deal worth $3 billion with a Qatari fund and Swiss-Italian shipping giant MSC’s subsidiary to develop Misrata port.
The project involves an investment of $2.7 billion in the expansion of the Misrata port terminal to increase its handling capacity to 4 million containers per year, according to the office of Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.
Misrata, the country’s main non-oil terminal, handles 60 to 65 percent of the country’s container traffic.
The deal was signed in the city, located 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, in the presence of Dbeibah, his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani.
The project brings together the Misrata Free Zone Authority, the Qatari fund Maha Capital Partners and the port operator Terminal Investment Limited, part of the shipping giant MSC.
The deal aims to transform the port “into a modern, efficient and high-capacity facility that strengthens Libya’s role in regional and global trade,” the three firms said in a joint statement.
According to Dbeibah’s office, the project ultimately aims to “generate annual operating revenues of $600 million” and create “8,400 direct jobs and 62,000 indirect jobs.”
Libya remains divided between Dbeibah’s United Nations-backed government based in Tripoli and a rival administration based in the east and backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar.