'Libya's frozen assets in China $15bn'

Wed Sep 7, 2011

Libya's frozen assets in China are worth about USD 15 billion, a professor of international relations at China Foreign Affairs University says.

The Chinese professor, Gong Shaopeng, also stated that unfreezing Libya's frozen assets should be a gradual process, Chinese newspaper China Daily reported on Tuesday.

He added that the assets already unfrozen are enough for Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) to operate for eight months until a general election is held.

Last week, NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said that China had obstructed the release of some of Libya's frozen assets.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing had "no difficulty in principle" with the release of such assets.

Some countries recently filed an application to the United Nations Security Council's Sanctions Committee to release the frozen assets of the Libyan government.

"In the spirit of being responsible to the Libyan people, China and some other members of the United Nations Security Council maintain that the use of the assets and supervision mechanism be further specified," Jiang said.

"After some applicant countries submitted more information, the application was approved by the United Nations Security Council's Sanctions Committee," she noted.

He Wenping, an expert on African studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said that a supervision mechanism is vital for the assets to be used in a proper way.

"It will be irresponsible if the assets are released without supervision. That may open the door for corruption," said the expert said.

Tens of billions of dollars in additional Libyan state funds have also been frozen by a number of Western governments, which have expressed reservations about releasing them despite NTC's repeated pleas for funds to run the interim government.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/197868.html.