Sitting in his office in downtown Tobruk, in eastern Libya, 50 year-old Ibrahim el Jrary organizes the city merchants’ transactions. Despite the country’s tension and instability, el Jrary remains hopeful that the future of trade in the new Libya will improve without the random decisions and confusion that hindered it before the revolution. 

Sitting in his office in downtown Tobruk, in eastern Libya, 50 year-old Ibrahim el Jrary organizes the city merchants’ transactions. Despite the country’s tension and instability, el Jrary remains hopeful that the future of trade in the new Libya will improve without the random decisions and confusion that hindered it before the revolution. 

As the current chairperson of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Tobruk, el Jrary, who has also been a merchant for years, says that being a professional trader under the former Libyan regime was a profession of uncertainties. “A merchant would risk his capital,” he said, leaving everything to luck.

Merchants did not have even the simplest of legal guarantees. Economic instability, for example, was primarily influenced by the ruling family’s moods. Merchants would get hard currency from the black market at a rate that was many times higher than the official government exchange rate, let alone the high customs duties, which sometimes amounted to as much as 400% for some products such as cars.

Price estimates and customs duties used to be determined by questionable committees that took neither international agreements nor international market prices into account or differences of foreign exchange rates and shipping costs.

An importer’s suffering did not end once his customs were examined, inspected and tested.  It was very probable that the goods might later be raided and inspected and even more measures might be required by the so-called Customs Police, which had also the power to raid trucks and warehouses and confiscate content even if the customs clearance conditions had already been fulfilled.

Merchants were subjected to even more scrutiny when exporting their wares. They were forced to travel by land, carrying big quantities of money with them, like smugglers. Many of them became victims of robberies and some were even killed.

“It was like a joke,” said el Jrary, “when Colonel Gaddafi made an order to open a prison called ‘The Corrupters on Earth Jail’. It was built in Tajura to the east of Tripoli and many merchants and businessmen were confined there with corruption charges. Of course, none of them was a thief of public money or a state figure, who made huge fortunes through stealing people’s money.

In 1997, El Jrary was one of those jailed. He spent six months in prison under interrogation, with the question that had no answer: Where did you get this?

“The confined people”, says el Jrary, “would be interrogated for a few minutes, and then left for days or weeks with the same repeated question: Where did you get this?“

They would also be asked about their source of hard currency and how they had transferred money abroad. The interrogators would ask them to provide money transfer statements, though such action was exclusive to public sector companies, influential state persons and some of the regime men, who misused the public companies and the licenses of the so-called security companies, for personal interests.

Once in the mid1990s, for example, a decision forbidding the import of women’s clothing was made, but a regime-affiliated person got a license on behalf of the Libyan Football Federation and imported women’s clothing of all types without inspection because they were imported on behalf of the federation. This way, legal texts were misused and knew no stability for years.

Laws and decisions were contradictory; legal, administrative and commercial systems in the country were greatly imperfect, and international relationships could be built and destroyed overnight according to the Colonel Gaddafi’s political mood.

These kinds of practices hampered the commercial traffic in Libya for four decades, during which time merchants, business people and private sector players suffered a great deal, while Gaddafi tried to enforce his theory of socialism, describing it as the best solution for the world problems, not just Libya’s!

In the last decade, the Gaddafi family tried to introduce reform projects. Developments were made in the banking sector, such as introduction of Visa and Master Card provided by some banks, the activation of SWIFT and the opening of commercial credits in a more flexible way.

Still, with the weak infrastructure, worn-out post system, and the absence of clear street names and building codes, banks and other related sectors face a challenge to deliver better and more comprehensive and effective services. According to specialists, this may take years, but it will become a reality if scientifically addressed within a development strategy to upgrade the county and its capabilities after a long stagnation. 

With this optimistic spirit, el Jrary gathers his things to leave the office. While the future of trade in Libya is unclear, it will at least be under some reasonable law, and this, he says, is the most important thing for him.