The U.N. special envoy for Libya warned that signs of partition are already evident in the troubled North African nation and urged influential nations to pressure Libya’s rival leaders to urgently finalize the constitutional basis for elections. Bathily told the U.N. Security Council that the continuing disagreement between the two rivals — specifically, the speaker of Libya’s HoR, Aguila Saleh, and Khaled al-Mashri, the president of the HSC based— on a limited number of provisions in the constitution “can no longer serve as a justification to hold an entire country hostage.” If the two institutions can’t reach an agreement swiftly, Bathily said, “an alternative mechanism”, can and should be used “to alleviate the sufferings caused by outdated and open-ended interim political arrangements.” He did not elaborate on what that mechanism could be. Read more from UNSMIL.

Libya is still a traditional cash-driven economy. ATMs are relatively few in number; those that work even fewer. It is the same with electronic points of sale (POS) in stores and businesses. E-payments are the exception, not the rule when Libyans go shopping. But that is changing – and changing fast. So say both Alsanussi Abukhzam, general manager of Moamalat, the public-sector financial services company providing e-services in Libya, and Hani Alsaoudi, sales manager at its private-sector rival, Tadawul. Driving growth for both is competition between them and, more importantly, changes in the regulations. Read more from the Libya Herald.

Libya’s central bank governor Sadiq Al-Kabir said Libya needs to boost oil production to enact sweeping development plans and diversify an economy heavily reliant on energy exports. Output needs to be at least 1.4 million barrels per day “if we want to make a shift in Libya’s economy,” Sadiq Al-Kabir told Bloomberg from the capital, Tripoli. The North African nation is currently pumping about 1.2 million, which he described as not enough to cover hikes in government spending should crude prices fall below $70 a barrel. More oil income would allow Libya to “expand development and infrastructure projects, stimulate the private sector and diversify the economy and sources of income,” the governor said, without elaborating. Read more from Bloomberg.

Senior officials representing Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States met to discuss the situation in Libya. They underlined the need for unified international support for Libya in overcoming the current political impasse. They welcomed the new UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Libya and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, and reiterated support for an UN-facilitated, Libyan-led, and owned process that enables Libya to hold credible, transparent, and inclusive presidential and parliamentary elections in the shortest possible time. Read more from the British Embassy in Libya.

The Libyan Ministry of Economy and Commerce enacted Decree 944/2022 on the Participation of Foreigners, Branches and Representative Offices of Foreign Companies in Libya (Decree 944/2022). Decree 944/2022 upholds the principle that any commercial activity in Libya requires the establishment of a presence – either through setting up a joint venture with a Libyan partner, or through registering a branch or representative office. Decree 944/2022 has also updated the prerequisites and capitalization requirements for establishing a presence in Libya. Most importantly Decree 944/2022 raises the permitted foreign participating in Libyan companies to 75% (and, with the permission of the Ministry, to 89%). Read more from Lexology.