Libya said on Saturday it was looking at relaxing restrictions on foreign and domestic trade, part of investor-friendly reforms which long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi has said are inevitable in the modern world.
The government's economy committee proposed that restrictions on imports be freed up and eventually cancelled, a source on the committee said. Export barriers covering cement, steel and subsidised commodities would also be removed.
The influential committee, part of the economy ministry, is made up of experts who study policy and issue recommendations to the government. "The committee expressed the intention to remove the quantitative restrictions on imports to reach the stage of cancelling them in order to achieve price stability ... as well as create job opportunities," the source said.
The body also proposed that a system of obligatory domestic price restrictions be phased out, although price limitations would remain on commodities, medicines, electricity and oil derivatives. Draft laws are expected to be drawn up covering competition, monopolies and the protection of consumers, the source said. The committee also decided on a mechanism to monitor wholesale commodity prices.
Libya has a tightly-controlled, command economy that is hamstrung by red tape, a bloated civil service and complex tax, customs and financial rules that have deterred private sector investment, leaving it reliant on oil and gas exports.
The country has been gradually opening to the West after it scrapped a prohibited weapons programme and agreed to pay compensation for the bombing of a US airliner over Scotland in 1988, clearing the way for the lifting of sanctions.
Last month the EU promised warmer ties with Libya for allowing six foreign medics to leave the country after eight years in prison on charges of infecting hundreds of children with HIV at a Libyan hospital.
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