Libyan rebels controlling the east of the country said today their economy will collapse by June unless France, Italy and the United States make a three-billion dollar loan secured by Muammar Gaddafi's frozen assets.
"The liquidity that we have domestically most likely will carry us through three weeks, at the most four weeks," said Ali Tarhoni, who holds the economy and oil portfolio in the rebel administration.
"I think if we get lines of credit from our friends in France, Italy and the United States we will be fine," he told reporters in the rebel capital Benghazi, adding that "we need two to three billion dollars."
That would enable his administration to get through the next three to four months, he said.
Libya's economy is in tatters after more than two months of conflict between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi, who has ruled the country for 41 years.
Tarhoni said he needed 50-100 million Libyan dinars (75-150 million dollars) a day to pay for food, medical care for those wounded in the conflict and the state salaries on which many here depend.
The rebels have already reached a consensus with the global powers which the rebel leadership will meet with in Italy on Thursday to set up a mechanism to get credit lines opened, he said.
The rebel leadership is no longer seeking for Gaddafi's assets to be unfrozen and given to the rebel administration, but for credit lines to be opened that would be secured by the countries in which these assets were being held.
"The consensus is that there will be lines of credit backed by these assets," he said, adding that that consensus would be formalised at the meeting in Rome of the International Contact Group on Libya.
Tarhoni did not specifically say that the three countries had agreed to provide the three-billion-dollar loan he is seeking. He said he believed Gaddafi's frozen assets around the world amounted to 165 billion dollars.
The Rome meeting is aimed at finding a political solution to the conflict in Libya, amid a bloody stalemate in the fighting and an escalating humanitarian crisis.
The International Contact Group talks will also discuss whether to arm the uprising against Gaddafi and how to finance the rebels, including through oil sales from eastern Libya on world energy markets.
But Tarhoni said that there were no plans to resume significant oil exports as the current priority was to ensure oil installations were made secure.
"The top priority is to protect the installations, not to produce," he said.
Libya was a key crude-exporting nation that produced some 1.7 million barrels a day before the uprising broke out, but it has since seen its output slashed.
The European Union last month added to its Libya sanctions list 26 energy firms accused of financing Gaddafi's regime, a move that Germany said amounted to a de facto oil and gas embargo.
But the United States last Wednesday authorised Americans to buy oil from the Libyan rebels, easing sanctions to open a stream of funding to opponents of Gaddafi.
One export shipment has been made from rebel-held territory, delivered to market through Qatar Petroleum in an exemption to the sanctions.