The Economy of Tunisia

Tunisia is amongst the most competitive economy in North Africa. Tunisia ranks 77th in the world for ease of doing business. Tunisia’s geostrategic position makes it an attractive destination for investment and trade. Being one of the most developed and diversified economies in the region, Tunisia has a well-developed infrastructure with high literacy rate profile with the modest availability of natural resources. This attractive macroeconomic profile has turned the tides of foreign investments towards Tunisia.

macroeconomic Profile

Nominal GDP 43.02 bn$

GDP per-Capita 4265.40 USD

Inflation 4.8 %

FDI stock 678.20 million$

Ease of Doing Business 77/190

Credit Ratings B

The economic growth rate of the region has stabilized over the past years with the government making greater strides to advance its political transformation. The Prosperity has been largely driven by growth accelerated investments along with large projects outlining national development plans along with speeding up of structural reforms. Over the years, Tunisia has demonstrated all the distinctive characteristics of the dual economy with a well-developed modern industrial base.

Tunisia has an economics concentrated largely into service sector followed by Tourism, Agriculture, Manufacturing of machinery and cables, textiles production, and the IT industry and IT-related outsourcing.

Tunisia’s agriculture is rich in olive production, Europe, and Saudi Arabia are amongst the largest importers of olives from Tunisia. In a bid to enhance the sector growth and attract large investments. The regional commission on agriculture development has been encouraging the local entrepreneur to acquire olive plants to enhance its export potential. The Regional commission on Agriculture development has floated agriculture tender inviting domestic bids for acquisition of olive plants, Olive Seedlings, olive Nurseries, transport of herbaceous olive cuttings etc as a part of development of agriculture season programme. Moreover, AFDB has been funding major sector policy reforms to garner the sector with profits.

Equally important the country has been experiencing export competitiveness into the service sectors like banking and tourism. Major banking reforms have helped Tunisia demonstrate a stable performance. Moreover, Tourism is strongly forming a main stay in the economy contributing 15% to economic GDP.

Telecom is yet another promising sectors that have managed to sustain the growth, 5 million$ have been invested into Tunisian Telecom infrastructure development to help sector drive further drive the economic growth. major telecom operators like Tunisie Telecom, Orange Tunisia, SYSTEC etc have providing telecommunication services to Tunisian citizens. Systec has won government telecommunication contract worth 4,155bn $ for the provision of cameras for the project financed by the European Union. Its open investment regime allows a foreign investor to hold 100% capital of the project without any authorization has helped it attract huge international attention. Tunisian has a flexible cross border trade regime that allows the foreign firms to hold 100% capital in the projects. opportunities for competitive bidding from Tunisia are largely into Consulting, Civil engineering works, Project monitoring etc. Tunisia has gained praises for its well-developed infrastructure across the world that has today made it one of attractive business destinations. According to the procurement statistics for Tunisia, billion$ of government procurement has been into infrastructure and construction sector. The government has also sought financial assistance from the multilateral institution. EIB or UNDP 0r AFDB funded road construction projects, modernization projects, motorway projects, market place rehabilitation projects are under pipeline and some of them on the verge of completion by 2018

The government has been wisely utilizing the procurement vehicle to drive the economics of the major industries in Tunisia. Be it telecommunication, IT or Manufacturing, the government has been participating actively by procuring state of art technologies from outside that would enhance her home industries. Moreover, with the international presence of countries like Europe and Italy, France, Germany etc. have helped Tunisia maintain stable growth profile.

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