Economic Reform in Libya had been implemented to convert itself into an open market economy from a socialist economy. Although the country's economic conditions were not bad, there were some economical issues which decelerated the country's economic growth. Moreover, the government's aim was to ensure certain social equity, by means of social care, better health and education, for the citizens. So the Libyan government adopted economic reform.
Reasons Behind reform:
Majority of the Libyan citizens' average income was very low, only 200 dollar per month in 2003, and public wages had been decreasing for the last three decades.
The rate of employment was also high.
The public enterprises were not functioning effectively.
Reform Process:
The reform program in Libya started under Prime Minister Shoukri Ghanem. The government attempted to privatize almost 360 state enterprises.
To liberalize the market, the government reduced a huge amount, almost 5 billion dollars, of subsidies.
The government had been subsidizing 93% of the basic commodities' value for the last decade. But these policies failed to get popularity.
The government took several plans to increase the public wages and reduce taxes.
Libyan government started to relax the restrictions on imports and the foreign organizations were allowed to run their export businesses through the local agents.
The government introduced reforms in many other sectors, like, financial sector, banking sector, oil and gas sector to name a few.
