Beyond oil: the companies and people building Libya's next economy

For decades, the simplest way to describe Libya's economy has been to describe its oil. The country holds enormous hydrocarbon reserves, and oil revenue still dominates the state: in 2025, oil revenues rose 30 percent, and government revenue reached 53.6 percent of GDP. The World Bank expects hydrocarbons to keep shaping Libya's medium-term growth, with oil production projected to average around 1.35 million barrels per day in 2026.

But that's only half the picture. Away from the oil fields and government budgets, a second Libyan economy is taking shape. Factories are producing food. Misrata is developing into an industrial and logistics center. Libyan companies are investing in agriculture, construction, finance, technology and hospitality. Steelmakers are producing direct-reduced iron and exporting hot-briquetted iron. New industrial projects are under construction around Benghazi, and solar power is moving from proposal toward large-scale development.

None of this means Libya has diversified. The private sector still accounts for only about 14 percent of the country's workforce, according to the World Bank. But non-oil sectors grew 6.9 percent in 2025, and the World Bank and OECD both identify agriculture, finance, ICT, construction and logistics as sectors with real potential for jobs and diversification. The more useful question, then, isn't whether Libya has an economy beyond oil. It's who is already building it.

The industrial economy Libya already has

One of the more overlooked facts about Libya is that it already has real industrial capability. The clearest example is the Libyan Iron and Steel Company (LISCO) in Misrata, whose complex includes direct-reduction plants, steel mills, lime and dolomite production, and both long- and flat-product rolling. Its first two direct-reduction units began commercial operation in 1990 with a combined annual capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of DRI; a third unit came online in 1997, producing up to 650,000 tonnes of HBI a year.

LISCO isn't producing solely for the domestic market. In the first half of 2024, it reported 512,672 tonnes of DRI from its first two units and 350,909 tonnes of HBI from the third, alongside exports of 331,588 tonnes of HBI, 43,056 tonnes of DRI and 7,067 tonnes of cold-briquetted iron. In May 2025, it shipped another 29,000 tonnes of HBI to Spain, with hot-rolled coils also going to European markets.

That changes the usual framing of diversification. Libya isn't only capable of extracting natural resources, it's capable of using energy and imported raw materials to manufacture an internationally traded industrial product. And the story may get considerably bigger.

Benghazi's bet on DRI

East of Benghazi, at Ras Al-Mangar, Tosyali SULB is developing an industrial complex centered on direct-reduced iron, with planned annual capacity of up to 7.5 million tonnes and a first phase reaching up to 2.5 million tonnes under the leadership of chairman and Libyan entrepreneur Ahmed Gadalla. The company says the project is currently 40 percent complete, built around modern DRI technology with a future pathway toward increased hydrogen use.

The project's significance goes beyond its headline capacity, because DRI sits in the middle of a longer industrial chain, from energy through DRI, steel, construction and manufacturing to exports. If the project reaches its planned scale, it could generate demand for logistics, engineering, maintenance, transport, construction and technical skills around it, and connect Libya to a changing European steel market. The company says the site was chosen partly for its access to transport infrastructure and future export markets, with lower-emission iron production as a stated objective as hydrogen use increases over time. That points to a genuine long-term opportunity: turning today's energy advantage into tomorrow's industrial one.

LISCO, meanwhile, is looking to expand further. In 2024, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Italian steel technology company Danieli for a proposed direct-reduction project capable of producing two million tonnes of sponge iron and hot-rolled iron annually. The proposed joint venture would give Danieli 51 percent and LISCO 49 percent, using LISCO's existing infrastructure; Danieli previously built two of LISCO's rebar plants, with capacities of 400,000 and 800,000 tonnes a year. Whether every announced project reaches completion is a separate question, but together these developments show that Libya already has an industrial base new investment can build on, which is a very different starting point than diversifying from zero.

Food: an economy hiding in plain sight

If steel demonstrates Libya's heavy-industrial potential, food manufacturing shows something equally important: Libyan companies can build large domestic manufacturing businesses around everyday consumption. Al Naseem Food Industries is one of the clearest examples. Founded in 1994 by Mohamed Raied and his brothers as an ice-cream factory, it has expanded into large-scale food and beverage manufacturing and distribution, and now describes itself as Libya's leading dairy producer with more than 30 years of operating history.

This is exactly the kind of company that gets overlooked in diversification discussions. There's nothing glamorous about producing milk, but industrial economies are built on businesses that make things people consume every day. Al-Jaied Food Industries, part of Al-Etah Group, is another example: its portfolio spans dairy, juices, tuna, pasta, cheese, tea, oils and tomato paste, and Al-Etah's wider investments cover agri-food and storage infrastructure, transport and logistics, construction, renewable energy and technology.

Whiba Holding operates even more broadly, across food and beverage, animal feed, agriculture and livestock, construction, automotive, ICT and fintech, hospitality, real estate and trade. The company says it supplies more than 48 percent of Libya's market needs for grains, rice and wheat, and has begun exporting products under its own brands to neighboring countries. These companies point to a bigger opportunity than simply growing more food: building the full chain around it, from farms and feed through livestock, processing, packaging, cold storage, logistics, distribution and retail.

Agriculture has to become an industry

Libya's agricultural potential is usually discussed in terms of land, but land alone doesn't create a modern agricultural economy. It requires irrigation, financing, machinery, storage, processing, transport, market access and technology. That's why agribusiness matters here: the OECD names it as one of five strategic sectors for Libya's economic diversification, alongside banking and finance, ICT, infrastructure and construction, and transport and logistics, and specifically highlights the need for better irrigation, agro-processing, cold-chain infrastructure, agricultural finance and stronger links between producers and markets.

Companies like Whiba are already working across agriculture, livestock and feed manufacturing, while other private businesses build food-processing and distribution capacity. The opportunity isn't to recreate the agriculture of the past. It's to build a modern Libyan food system.

Misrata shows what an industrial ecosystem can look like

One of Libya's more interesting economic stories isn't a single company, it's a city. Misrata has developed an ecosystem connecting manufacturing, steel, shipping, logistics, construction and trade, centered on the Misurata Free Zone. Its chairman, Muhsin M. Sigutri, an electromechanical engineer with a master's degree in control engineering from the University of Sheffield, has led the zone since 2020.

The zone's infrastructure goes beyond moving containers. In November 2025, it announced the inauguration of a shipbuilding and maintenance facility, a truck yard, a vessel-traffic-control tower, smart access systems, port customs facilities and telecommunications upgrades. The significance is in how these pieces reinforce each other: a port attracts logistics, logistics attracts warehousing, warehousing attracts traders, industrial infrastructure attracts manufacturers, and manufacturers create demand for engineering and services that can eventually support exports. That combination is how a regional economic hub takes shape.

Libya's geography may be one of its greatest economic assets

Libya sits in a genuinely strategic position, close to Europe across the Mediterranean, bordering Egypt to the east and the wider African market to the south. But geography only becomes an economic advantage when infrastructure and institutions let businesses actually use it, which is why logistics deserves to be treated as an industry in its own right. The OECD names transport and logistics as one of Libya's five strategic diversification sectors, arguing that modernized ports, transport corridors, customs systems and intermodal infrastructure could restore Libya's role as a trade gateway between Africa and Europe.

The Misurata Free Zone is already positioning itself around that idea. In 2025, it was pursuing cooperation with international companies around its port and logistics infrastructure, including plans for an integrated logistics base serving industrial and offshore operations. The opportunity extends beyond importing goods more efficiently, toward a model where goods are imported, stored, processed, manufactured and re-exported, a fundamentally different economic base than one built almost entirely on crude exports.

Finance: the economy cannot diversify without capital

Factories and farms can't scale without money, which makes banking one of the less visible but more important parts of Libya's diversification story. The financial system remains dominated by public institutions and faces significant problems with credit access, regulation and SME financing, though the OECD identifies banking and financial services as one of five strategic sectors where reform could support private-sector development.

Private institutions are trying to expand their role. Aman Bank, chaired by Mokhtar Hadi Eshili, describes itself as a private Libyan bank. Digital payments, mobile banking, SME finance and fintech more broadly could reduce the friction that keeps entrepreneurs stuck in informal business activity rather than moving into scalable companies.

The Central Bank's own foreign-exchange data offers a useful look at the productive economy underneath the headline numbers. Between January and April 2025, 1,476 private-sector companies and factories had approved requests for foreign exchange. Production and operational inputs represented 23.8 percent of private-sector foreign-exchange purchases, food commodities another 23.6 percent, building materials and construction supplies 8 percent, machinery and equipment 5.8 percent, and agricultural goods 2.5 percent. These aren't abstract categories, they represent businesses buying machinery, importing inputs, producing food, building facilities and operating.

Technology could become Libya's most scalable industry

Heavy industry needs factories, agriculture needs land and water, logistics needs ports and roads. Technology mainly needs people, and Libya has a young population. The OECD identifies ICT as a strategic opportunity for diversification and job creation, since digital services can raise productivity across the rest of the economy, while also flagging serious obstacles: infrastructure gaps, limited competition, power outages, weak regulation and insufficient digital skills.

The opportunity isn't necessarily to build the next Silicon Valley. It's more practical than that: digital payments, business software, telecommunications, e-commerce, logistics technology, fintech, digital government, IT outsourcing and professional digital services are all realistic starting points. A Libyan programmer doesn't need a Libyan oil field to sell a service abroad, which makes the digital economy potentially one of the country's most geographically flexible export industries.

Construction can become more than reconstruction

Libya's infrastructure needs are enormous, but reconstruction itself can become a platform for domestic industry. Steel creates demand for construction, construction creates demand for cement, cement creates demand for limestone and logistics, infrastructure creates demand for engineering, and housing creates demand for furniture, electrical equipment, glass, ceramics and building materials. The OECD identifies infrastructure and construction as another strategic sector, arguing that better infrastructure is essential for reducing business costs and connecting Libyan companies to wider value chains.

That creates a real policy choice. Libya can spend billions rebuilding infrastructure and import most of the inputs, or it can use reconstruction to stimulate domestic production wherever Libya can be competitive. The second option carries a much larger multiplier effect.

Renewable energy could connect the whole picture

Solar power may look unrelated to steel, agriculture or manufacturing, but reliable, affordable electricity is an input into almost everything. Libya has begun moving toward larger renewable-energy projects: the Renewable Energy Authority has been working with TotalEnergies and the General Electricity Company of Libya on the 500-MW Saddada solar project, and in September 2025 the authority said preparations were advancing toward implementation.

The more interesting opportunity is what happens beyond the solar farm itself. Reliable electricity supports agriculture, desalination and manufacturing, and could eventually feed into hydrogen production for lower-carbon DRI and steel, a connection that could matter considerably if Libya's iron industry moves toward lower-carbon production. Libya doesn't necessarily have to choose between hydrocarbons and renewables; it can use today's energy economy to build the infrastructure and industrial capability tomorrow's energy system will need.

Tourism is another undeveloped asset

Libya's tourism industry remains small relative to its potential, but that's not a reason to dismiss it. Mediterranean coastline, desert landscapes, ancient cities and archaeological sites could support cultural, archaeological, desert, coastal, business and domestic tourism. Building that industry requires more than attracting visitors, it requires hotels, restaurants, transportation, tour operators, guides, digital booking, heritage management, aviation and local services working together. Companies operating in hospitality and tourism, including businesses within groups such as Whiba, are part of a broader service economy that could expand as infrastructure and security improve.

The bigger story is not individual companies

It's easy to look at LISCO and say Libya has a steel company, at Al Naseem and say Libya has a food manufacturer, or at Misrata Free Zone and say Libya has a port. The real opportunity comes when these businesses connect into longer chains: natural gas into DRI into steel into construction into manufacturing into exports; agriculture into feed into livestock into dairy into food processing into cold chain into distribution; ports into warehousing into logistics into manufacturing into exports; solar into electricity into desalination into agriculture into food production. That's what economic diversification actually looks like in practice, a network of industries reinforcing each other rather than one giant industry replacing another.

The companies worth watching

Several companies stand out for closer attention. The Libyan Iron & Steel Company in Misrata produces DRI, HBI, steel and rolled products. Tosyali SULB, in the Benghazi region, is developing large-scale DRI with ambitions for international markets. Al Naseem Food Industries, in Misrata, manufactures dairy and food products. Al-Jaied and its parent Al-Etah Group, also in Misrata, work across food manufacturing, logistics and diversified investment. Whiba Holding operates across food, agriculture, feed, logistics, construction, ICT and hospitality in multiple locations. The Misurata Free Zone runs ports, logistics, industrial infrastructure and maritime services. And Aman Bank provides private banking and financial services.

These companies aren't identical, and they shouldn't all be treated as equally successful or equally scalable. But together they show that a private, industrial economy already exists underneath Libya's oil economy.

The people behind the projects matter too

Economic diversification is ultimately a human story: engineers operating DRI plants, factory managers running production lines, entrepreneurs building distribution networks, bankers developing financial products, technology founders building digital services, logistics executives expanding ports, and industrial investors bringing international technology into Libya. Among the figures whose work illustrates this transition are Ahmed Gadalla, chairman of Tosyali SULB; Muhsin Sigutri, chairman of the Misurata Free Zone; Mohamed Raied and his brothers, founders of Al Naseem; and Mokhtar Hadi Eshili, chairman of Aman Bank. Their industries are very different, and that's the point: a diversified economy isn't built by one standout company, it's built by thousands of decisions made across different industries.

What could stop this from happening

The positive story shouldn't obscure the difficult one. The World Bank identifies conflict, underinvestment, weak infrastructure and public-sector dominance as constraints on private-sector development, and the OECD points to similar problems around regulation, access to finance, infrastructure, competition, digital connectivity and fragmented governance.

There's also a more basic issue: many Libyan companies remain dependent on imports. The Central Bank's foreign-exchange data makes this visible, with production inputs, food, building materials, machinery, transportation equipment and other imported goods accounting for large amounts of private-sector foreign-exchange demand. That isn't necessarily a sign of failure; developing manufacturing economies often start by importing machinery and raw materials. The real question is what happens next. Can companies gradually produce more inputs locally, can suppliers emerge around major factories, can Libyan workers build the necessary technical skills, can businesses export, can finance shift toward productive investment, and can infrastructure become reliable enough for factories to run continuously? Those questions will determine whether Libya's emerging businesses stay isolated successes or become the foundation of a genuinely diversified economy.

Libya doesn't need to become "post-oil"

There's a misconception worth challenging here: diversification doesn't require Libya to stop being an oil economy, and that isn't realistic or economically necessary. Oil can supply the capital, gas can supply industrial energy, ports can supply access to international markets, and domestic demand can supply an initial customer base, with private businesses turning those advantages into higher-value products and services over time. The more useful model runs from oil revenue through infrastructure, private investment, manufacturing and skills to exports, rather than from oil revenue straight through government salaries into imports and consumption. That distinction could shape Libya's economic future more than almost anything else discussed here.

The opportunity is already visible

Libya still has a long way to go. The private sector is too small, manufacturing remains limited, agriculture faces structural problems, the financial system needs reform, infrastructure is unreliable, and political fragmentation continues to impose real costs. Hydrocarbons remain overwhelmingly important. But focusing only on those problems misses something equally real: a company founded as an ice-cream factory has grown into a major food manufacturer, a steel complex is producing DRI and exporting HBI to Europe, a new industrial project is being built around millions of tonnes of future iron production, a free zone is developing ports, ship maintenance, logistics and industrial infrastructure, a private bank is expanding financial services, a holding group is investing across food, agriculture, technology, construction and hospitality, and a solar project is moving toward becoming part of a wider energy transition. These aren't promises about what Libya might become. Some of them are already happening. The question is whether the country can scale them.

The next Libyan economy probably won't come from finding a single replacement for oil, because there won't be another oil. It's more likely to emerge from the accumulation of smaller transformations: a factory in Misrata, a farm in the south, a logistics operation on the coast, a technology company in Tripoli, a steel complex east of Benghazi, a bank financing a small manufacturer, a solar farm supplying electricity, a hotel welcoming foreign visitors, a food company replacing an imported product with something made locally. Each is small compared with Libya's oil industry, but that comparison misses the point. Oil is an industry. Diversification is an ecosystem, and it's beginning to take shape. Libya doesn't need to invent its non-oil economy from scratch, it needs to build on the companies, entrepreneurs, workers and industrial capabilities that already exist, and connect them into something larger. Oil built much of Libya's wealth. The next chapter is about what Libya can build with it.