Year: 2018

Energy transition in Tunisia is key aim of AEE Tunisia Chapter

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President of the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) Tunisia Chapter Ayoub Baba said the Association is striving to achieve the aims for which the association was founded which mainly consists in the transition of Tunisia’s energy sector and the training of Tunisian engineers so as to be up-to-date in the world as regards the skills in energy engineering and industrial sector. Tunisia is going through a crucial transition in the area of innovative energy citing the example of South Africa which has gone through this experience of energy transition, he…

Reforms of public companies must reach accord soon says Tunisian Premier

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Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said on Friday that ailing public companies needed to be restructured quickly, as Tunisia is trying to overcome an economic crisis and a budget deficit. “I will not accept to maintain my post to be a false witness and to postpone reforms”, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed told the House of People’s Representatives (HPR). He said public companies had accumulated losses worth 6.5 billion Tunisian dinars ($2.72 billion). “The cost of reform is expensive but the cost of non-reform is much more expensive,” he said, underlining that…

EU launches new programme to support Tunisian start-ups worth 75 MD

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European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn announced, Wednesday in Tunis, the launch of a new European programme to support Tunisian Start-ups, with a value of €25 million (about 75 million dinars- MD). This programme will mobilise funding for the launch of 1,000 new innovative businesses, besides financial support for the various co-working spaces and incubators set up in different regions of the country. “This programme is fully in line with the new Tunisian “Startup Act «which aims to boost entrepreneurship and promote innovative projects. This will…

Tunisia to host Islamic Development Bank annual meeting

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The Islamic Development Bank Group’s (IDB) 43rd annual meeting will be held in the first week of April ( April 1 – 5),  in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, meeting’s website announced Wednesday. The meeting will be attended by nearly 2,000 participants from around the world. “The meeting offers an ideal platform for decision makers to discuss challenges and explore opportunities” facing IDB group member countries, according to the meeting’s website. A hundred topics are expected to be discussed, including digital technologies, sustainable development, Islamic capital, youth employment and food security.…

Tunisia opens City of Culture

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The City of Culture, Tunisia’s largest multi-faceted cultural monument, was officially inaugurated on Wednesday evening. The richly equipped City of Culture complex, launched a decade ago but long stalled, incorporates a modern art museum, a 1,800-seat opera, two theatres, a cinema, library and studios to host festivals. “Every Tunisian should be proud of this project, culture is the main tool with which we will fight terrorism,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said at the opening ceremony. “Tunisians have to dream and have confidence in themselves.” He thanked all those who contributed…

Tunisia drowns in negative international rating

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“Moody’s experts believe that longer-term uncertainty may have increased and ruled out a solution to the rapidly accumulating economic crises within months, putting risks on the pillars of Tunisia’s growth which is already a fragile economy.” Tunisia needs an urgent miracle to emerge from the international downgrade of its economy, which has worsened after Moody’s downgraded the country’s rating. Moody’s downgrades Tunisia’s rating to B2 from B1, outlook changed to stable, as authorities struggled to change the tools of the slowing financial system by assigning this almost impossible task to…

UTICA in Full Gear with its New President

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The newly-elected president of UTICA – Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, has been sending shockwaves across the political and economic circles of the country. His frequent presence on TV and radio programs in recent days provided him with unprecedented public exposure to reiterate what he –and many others- really think about the economic challenges facing the country. Samir Majoul, elected as 7th UTICA president on January 17, 2018, seems determined not to adopt a stereotyped discourse when talking about the state of Tunisia’s economy. He made it cristal…

Tunisia’s revenues from date up 22% by March 15 for 2017-2018 season

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The  revenues from date exportsin Tunisia reached TND 402.4 million ($168 million) on March 15, 2018, for the 2017-18 season,  according to minister of agriculture, water resources, and fishery. This achivement represents an increase by 22.2% compared to the revenues in the same period during the previous season. The country achieved this gain thanks to an increase in the exports which jumped from 61, 487 tons to 66, 116 tons (+7.52%). This figure includes 5, 099.1 tons of organic dates. The main destinations that recorded a boom in their imports are…

Tunisia observes 62nd anniversary of independence, Google dedicates doodle

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Tunisia is celebrating on Tuesday the 62nd anniversary of its independence from France, in a holiday that is still widely celebrated, with official celebrations taking place throughout the country. Google dedicated a doodle to Tunisian National Day 2018, depicting a Tunisian flag waving against a background of palm trees, with a link that redirects to the Wikipedia entry on the story of Tunisian independence. Here is the doodle :” In both prehistory and recorded history, Tunisia is a historical hotspot. Tools from the Middle Stone Age (around 200,000 years ago)…

Tunisia hopes boost in Chinese investment can ease economic woes

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As Chinese investment increased in other North African countries, their absence in Tunisia was noticeable. As late as 2015, there were few infrastructure projects bearing Mandarin characters such as those found in Algiers, no shops selling specialized Asian food products like in Cairo, and compared with the crowded streets of Marrakech, there were precious few Chinese tourists in Tunis, Al-Monitor said. But in the past year, China has been increasingly looking toward Tunisia. Projects in Algeria and Egypt have not been as successful as initially hoped, with delayed permits and declining oil prices…