For the last five years ATEX’s Libya Build has been the largest event organised in the north African nation. The event is a facilitator of modernisation, civic development and national progression.
In 2010 however, the show ground to a halt. The Libyan people, after years of oppression and tyranny under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, began their revolution. Freedom fighters armed themselves and took to the streets in converted pick-up trucks, fuelled by resentment and inflamed by international calls for Gaddafi’s abdication, many inspired by similar displays of defiance elsewhere in the Middle East. ATEX had no choice but to close its offices for business.
Two years on and Libya stands among its peers as a new country. At time of writing it had freshly sworn in a new government led by Mahmoud Jibril, leader of the moderate, pro-business National Forces Alliance (NFA) that swept aside the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya’s elections in July. The election, Libya’s first for 48 years, saw the NFA and its allies take 17 of the country’s 20 ‘super constituencies’ while the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction party captured just one.
“Jibril is the most educated, qualified person in Libya,” says ATEX managing director Maged Mahfoud. “He led the executive office as soon as this revolution started, building his international relationship with the West and working really hard to get out of Gaddafi’s regime, professionally; not with guns.”
Gaddafi died on 20 October and ATEX reopened its office and called a meeting for the first time for nine months, on 1 November.
“In our first meeting, the ATEX managers and employees said they did not think we could do the exhibition in May 2012, due to security issues. There were still many people with guns.
“They said there was no way the Europeans would come and participate in Libya Build, and that factor would damage business,” he says.
To overcome these perceptions, Mahfoud worked alongside ATEX director Firas el Mortadi to produce a report updating everybody with an accurate depiction of the situation in Libya.
The response was surprising. “In December we received emails from organisations, associations and embassies in Libya telling us that they would be participating in a big way, as they could see light at the end of the tunnel,” Mahfoud said.
This gave ATEX five months to turn the event around. Without delay, the marketing and sales machine kicked into activity. Key roles were outsourced to ensure the quality ATEX demanded was there, deals were rekindled with airlines and logistics firms, and key figures were sourced to help build the profile of the event on an international scale.
“By February we were sold out,” said Mahfoud. “In May we filled 17,000sqm with 642 companies, of which 65 per cent were international.”
Sixty-five per cent in a country that only a year previously had rocked the foundations of the ruling party to its core and toppled one of the 21st century’s most ruthless dictators? The figure is nothing if not further condemnation of the Gaddafi regime. In 2010, during a time in which Gaddafi was courting international business with Libyan infrastructure contracts worth US$200bn, Libya Build did not reach this level.
“For the 2012 edition the government in Libya was transitional,” said Mahfoud. “We were not allowed to sign contracts and business was not yet officially activated. Everyone knew the general election would not be until June or July, and without an existing government we had not yet drawn up a new investment plan for the future.
“But when the doors opened and 19,000 visitors entered, I began hearing reports from exhibitors saying that although they received the same visitors as previous years, this time it was different. People came because they were free to do business. They said ‘we will support you because this is our place’.”
“One businessman who represented a company worth €10m previously attended with €300,000 – €400,000. He didn’t want to grow or take in large orders, not just for tax reasons but because he didn’t want the regime and Gaddafi’s sons to know how big he was. Now this gentleman comes and says ‘I am worth €10m but I want to get a loan from banks and I want to do business worth €50m’.”
Libya it seems, is truly open for business.
This was first published in the Issue 3/2012 of Exhibition World. Any comments? Email exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
