Wüstenschiff

Five years after it was signed by former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and ex Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, the bilateral Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation Agreement has borne its first and principal fruit in the shape of a contract to build a new 1,700-kilometer coastal highway crossing Libya from east to west. Libya's Ras Ejder-Emssad Expressway Project Management Committee (REEMP) has awarded an Italian business consortium led by Salini Impregilo a 963-million-euro contract, which will employ 2,000 people to build a first 400-kilometer section of the highway linking the city of Benghazi to the Egyptian border. Part of Italian reparations for damage caused Libya during colonial rule, the bilateral agreement is financed by a tax levy on partly state-controlled Italian energy giant ENI. It involves payouts of 5 billion euros, with 3 billion earmarked for the highway. ENI last year paid an extra 154 million euros in revenue tax, company records show [...] Work is slated to begin within a few months, pending finalization of financial and workplace security issues with the Libyan government.