China’s Investments in Libya

There are 13 Chinese state-owned companies in Libya, most of which are in the industry of infrastructure construction, including China Railway Construction Corporation, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China Communications Construction Company, China Gezhouba (Group) Corporation, Sinohydro Corporation, and China Metallurgical Group Corporation. Other investments include 75 joint ventures and 50 projects with 36,000 personnel. China National Petroleum Corporation and Huawei are among the investors. 

These companies have a substantial stake in Libya. For example, China Railway Construction Corporation has 3 construction contracts totaling US$4.2 billion with US$686 million completed. As of February, China State Construction Engineering’s construction contracts amounted to $17.6 billion, close to half of which have been finished. Recent years have seen increasingly close economic ties between China and Arab countries in the field of communications, automobile, oil, and natural gas.  The total trade volume exceeded US$100 billion over the past three years.