Libya’s Oil Revenue Drops to $10.2bn in 1st Half of 2019 – CBL

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has revealed that the country’s oil revenue has dropped in the first half of 2019.

Dipping from 11.2% to 14.3 billion dinars ($10,2 billion) in the first six months of 2019 compared with the same period last year, the North African country’s oil represented 92.8% of the country’s total income during 2018.

Revenue from foreign exchange fees stood at 11.1 billion dinars, the bank said in a statement. It also listed on a chart an allocation of $2.096 billion for state oil firm NOC.

Libya’s internationally recognised government of national accord (GNA) in Tripoli imposed in September a 183% fee on hard currency transactions, effectively devaluing the Libyan dinar, in a bid to narrow the gap between official and black market rates.

Public sector employees’ salaries accounted for 55.6% of total spending at 9.9 billion dinars during the first half of 2019, while subsidies represented 19.4% of total state spending equivalent to 3.483 billion dinars.

After the takeover of Libya’s long-ruling Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, most development projects stopped and spending in the oil-rich country became limited to paying salaries for a massive number of state employees.

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