Tunisia will offer foreign investors and financiers participation in $50bn of projects as it seeks to create jobs to maintain political stability, the country’s investment minister said.
The projects range from construction of a new deep-water port at Enfidha in northern Tunisia to desalination plants and energy-generating projects. They will be announced at an international investment
conference next month.
Investors from 70 countries are expected to come to Tunisia for the conference, Fadhel Abdelkefi, the minister of development, investment and international cooperation, said in an interview at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.
“We will offer foreign investors and financing funds big projects worth $50bn, to be implemented during the next five years,” Abdelkefi said. “Some projects will be in partnership between the state and the private sector.”
Foreign direct investment in Tunisia has been sluggish since the ousting of Tunisia’s authoritarian leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in January 2011 ushered in an era of political and industrial unrest.
“At least 500 foreign companies left Tunisia after 2011 because … we spent five years investing in democracy,” Abdelkefi said. New foreign investment fell to 2bn dinars ($885m) in 2015 from 3.5bn dinars in 2010. Read the full news here.