Shelling to Selling: Rolling up for Libyan profits

While Libya is going through a tough period of post-revolutionary development, after its infrastructure was badly damaged, countries which first bombed Libyan cities are cashing-in on rebuilding them. They may have helped bring down the house, but they were very careful not to burn bridges. As Libya rises from the ashes of civil war, the countries that poured oil on to the fire are now lining up to cash in by undoing the damage. The belief that Russia benefited a great deal from trading with the Gaddafi regime is very widespread in Tripoli, but it is simply false. In 2010, Moscow was number 17 on the list of Libya's main trading partners, accounting for just 0.4 per cent of its international trade. The countries that had the largest trade volumes with Gaddafi's Libya are precisely the ones that spearheaded the campaign against him -- the European Union, the United States and Turkey. And they all are now jostling for contracts to rebuild Libya. American business style is still a bit of an oddity here, but is already catching up. Construction firm owner Richard Peters arrived in Tripoli just before the uprising to seal a multimillion dollar contract with Gaddafi's government. The war and Peters' subsequent incarceration threw him off track, but now he hopes to make up for it.

Shelling to Selling: Rolling up for Libyan profits