Libya’s Ministry of Economy and Trade has issued new packaging requirements for imported products. The decree (398/2023) will come into force on the 1st October 2023. Regulatory authorities have the right to confiscate products that contravene the new law.
The new packaging requirements mean that products must display:
- The product name and its trademark
- The product’s international identification number
- The factory name and address
- Country of origin
- The date of production and expiry date
- Size in international units
- List of ingredients
- The name, address and registration number of the local importer/distributor
- Any warning or alert data issued by health or economic authorities regarding the product or ingredients
- Any other data specified in the applicable legislation
This information must be displayed legibly in Arabic on the outside of the pack.
The impact of the new law is not yet clear. Firstly, it has been issued by the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, which means that its application will inevitably be applied less rigorously in Benghazi and other parts of Libya.
Secondly, Libya is a relatively small market: onerous pack requirements may be ignored by importers to test compliance. Or, if enforced, the importation of low volume imported products and marginal SKUs will halt in formal distribution, possibly to be replaced by other products or parallel import. Or distributors may come to some kind of financial or other understanding with authorities that allows them to circumvent regulations.
Whatever the outcome, we think it is largely unworkable and disruptive. The Libya-specific element (local distributor and registration number) places an additional packaging cost and requirement that won’t meet the threshold for most manufacturers because it will apply at every SKU. Distributors won’t like the additional burden and will take their protests to the Ministry of Economy and Trade. Where we tend to see this onerous requirement on imported products it is typically used to hand an advantage to locally manufactured brands. But because of the security situation in Libya, investment in local FMCG manufacturing is limited.
A possible workaround could be introduced for low volume SKUs, similar to Nigeria’s GLSI system. But that isn’t under discussion, which means an undetermined period of disruption for importers.
