In March and June, Islamic extremists attacked popular tourist destinations in Tunisia, crippling its once vital tourism industry. Yahoo! News reports that despite this enormous economic setback, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Tunisia to move forward with an enormous list of pending economic reforms the IMF believes may help right the North African nation’s sinking economy.
Tunisia has been in the process of economic reform and liberalization following decades of state interventionism left the economy on the verge of collapse. While growth has been moderate, it sustained for over a decade. Unfortunately, that growth trend may have ended, along with the lives of at least 38 people, due to a horrific terrorist attack on Saturday.
Until recently, Tunisia was considered to be a minor league and relatively underexplored venue in Africa’s rapidly expanding oil & gas scene. This situation has quickly changed with new bid rounds and forced relinquishments creating an opportunity for new companies to come in.
Tunisia’s central bank governor Chadli Ayari has urged Western economies to make good on their promise to provide financial aid to Arab Spring states, reported Reuters on Monday, as Middle Eastern states also prepare to raise the issue during the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) annual meeting in Tokyo later this month.
Speaking on the sidelines of an Arab central bankers’ conference in Kuwait, Ayari told reporters that several Arab economies were now struggling to cope during this major political transition.
Five weeks after protesters forced out the country’s dictator, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali,
Tunisians are locked in a fierce and noisy debate about how far, or even whether, Islamism should be infused into the new government.
About 98 percent of the population of 10 million is Muslim,
but Tunisia’s liberal social policies and Western lifestyle shatter stereotypes of the Arab world:
Tunisia is a lower middle-income economy comes under the Middle East and North African region, as to the classification made by the World Bank on the basis of income and region for the year 2006.
Tunisia is stepping towards the process of economic liberalization in the recent years. The economy is largely dependent upon agriculture and tourism sector.
Major agricultural products in the country are wheat, barley, olives, fruits, and vegetables. Important industries are food processing, construction, tourism and textiles.
Tunisia is the northernmost country in Africa with a diverse economy and several viable industry sectors that include agriculture, agrarian, fisheries, farming, mining, tourism, transportation, and industrial manufacturing.
For a long time, Tunisia’s government had too much control over the economy, but in the past 10 years, this situation has lessened to some degree. Increased privatization, has lead to a less complicated tax structure and a more sensible approach to relieving Tunisia’s public debt.
