Whatever the ups and downs of Tripoli's ever-changing political and security landscape, one company has never been out of business: the Palm City Residences gated community, co-owned by the Maltese Pisani family and the Libyan state fund Lafico. The decade of upheaval since Muammar Gaddafi's downfall in 2011 has turned this estate of 413 luxury villas into a mini version of Baghdad's US-controlled Green Zone created in the early 2000s. Used extensively by foreign diplomats for years, since Abdelhamid
In Focus | Libya
How Tripoli's ritzy 'Green Zone' Palm City rides the storm
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Built just before the fall of the Gaddafi regime by the Pisani family-owned Maltese group Corinthia, the 413 villas of Palm City have become the place most diplomats and humanitarian expats in Tripoli call home. With the prospect of political stability on the horizon, businessmen are now flocking to the compound, which generates an annual profit of over €25m.
