Libya’s Central Bank announced on Saturday that the country’s rival legislative bodies have greenlighted Libya’s first unified state budget in over a decade, according to Arab News.
Libya has been divided between eastern and western administrations since the 2014 civil war. The country last approved a unified national budget in 2013.
The Central Bank said the budget’s approval by the two rival legislative bodies could boost financial stability, marking a significant breakthrough toward ending years of fiscal division.
The two legislative bodies are the eastern-based House of Representatives (HoR), elected in 2014, and the High Council of State in the west, formed under a 2015 political agreement with members drawn from the 2012 parliament.
The budget agreement was signed by Essa Aribi, representing the Benghazi-based House of Representatives, and Abduljalel Shawesh, representing the High Council of State in Tripoli, where the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) is also based.
The Central Bank Governor Naji Issa described the move as “an obvious declaration that Libya is capable of overcoming its differences when a unified vision for its future is forged.”
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