Libya has long been a country of enormous, yet unrealised,
potential. It has almost 2,000km of pristine undeveloped beaches
on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea only a two-hour
flight from most major European cities and 39 billion barrels of
proven oil reserves producing 2% of the world's oil. Add to this
a pressing need to overhaul its infrastructure and basic
services, and Libya should have been an attractive destination
for foreign investors, contractors and services - but this was
never fully realised, due to problems endemic in Muammar
Gaddafi's Libya, characterised by corruption, legal uncertainty,
high political risk, administrative deficiency and Soviet-style
bureaucracy. On 17 February 2011, Libyans across the country
rose up against the regime which, following a nine-month armed
conflict that caught the world's imagination and dominated news
headlines, led to the eventual overthrow of the regime and
Gaddafi's death. The legacy of 42 years of Gaddafi rule will not
be resolved overnight, bu