A Chinese Commerce Ministry delegation held talks Monday with Libyan officials on bilateral cooperation and resumption of Chinese businesses in post-war Libya.

The Chinese delegation, led by Wang Shenyang, director of the ministry's Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Department, is seeking China's participation in Libya's post-war reconstruction and to negotiate on obstacles facing Chinese companies resuming projects here.

Omran Ghali, director of International and Economic Cooperation at the Libyan Ministry of Economy, hailed the remarkable cooperation between the two countries and said he hoped for more foreign investment covering construction, agriculture and tourism.

Referring to projects interrupted by the country's civil war, Libyan Deputy Minister of Housing Facilities Ali Abdul Hafiz said the new government respected all contracts signed with foreign companies and had formed a special committee to review them and solve remaining problems in order to protect foreign investors' rights.

But he said priority would be given to contracts according to their importance to the needs of the Libyan people, with subordinate consideration given to the projects' time limits and the nation's equity in them.

He also said Libyan companies were expected to restart business from February and foreign companies from May. If any company wanted to resume operation sooner, the Libya government would provide support to overcome difficulties, but only if it had no preconditions, including settlement of past accounts and contract changes.

The delegation specified Chinese companies' difficulties, such as visa, financial accounts and export problems, which could not be solved without the Libyan government's help.

China supported Libya's effort in creating a committee to solve all the problems, said the Chinese delegation, adding that China would maintain contact with it.

However, releasing money and activating accounts were priorities for getting back to work as some Chinese companies were too badly affected by the war to operate without help, the Chinese delegation stressed, calling it the biggest divergence between the two sides.

Libya affirmed Chinese companies' right to reclaim their money, but the problem could not be solved immediately because of the shortage of government's funds.

Before the war, China had contracts in Libya worth some 20 billion U.S. dollars and had built more than 100,000 housing units, some of which were 10 to 80 percent completed.

The Chinese delegation arrived here Saturday night. During the five-day tour, it will visit Tripoli and Benghazi to assess losses of Chinese assets and discuss restarting projects in the country.

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