The new Tunisia Prime minister Naija Bouden will have the huge task of trying to uplift the economy. Tunisia has had rough political instability for decades, and they’re hoping for the best. The government has promised to prioritize the economic pillar over others.
The coronavirus affected almost all African countries. Tunisia is one of the North African countries that experienced a long lockdown. Most industries closed down, and people lost their jobs. A large population of youth became unemployed. That has been the new norm for over two years now.
Tunisians expect the government to pump more money into a variety of projects to reduce the rate of unemployment at least. Internal banks will offer loans to small business partners. The President has already held talks with the International Monetary Fund, but they suspended it. This was after President Kais Saied seized some executive members and suspended parliament. He talked about the ruling by decree.
The head of state went ahead to distract Prime minister Bouden with all his administration. Bouden has a career in geology.
Former trader and economist Mohsen Hassan said the new government must develop a plan to rush the IMF negotiations. The country needs a lot of funds to steer up new projects. Tunisia currently is just suffering mainly because of the stumble in its political pillar last decade. The politicians who were chairing the state neglected the economic pillar.
The country has managed to grow at a rate of 0.6% GDP. This resulted in an inflation of 6%. Tunisia has a population of 12 million people. Among them, the statistics by World Bank showed that 5% of them live in extreme poverty. The vulnerable families increase due to the pandemic.
Important sectors like tourism have experienced a blow due to Covid-19. Years before the pandemic, the country’s pyramids attracted millions of tourists. Their income annual income was 14% GDP. However, the Covid-19 destroyed all the sources of income, the economy shrunk by 8.8%.
Prime minister Hichem Mechichiwent direct the IMF to bid for the fourth time. They are expecting a loan of around $4 billion. The talks have been in silent mode since the government’s top leaders started fighting among themselves. Tunisia promised to pay the loan within three years.
Bouden wrote a long post on his Facebook account. “work for the formation of a homogenous government to tackle the country’s economic difficulties and fight against corruption.”
The post got a lot of comments within 2 hours. Many of the citizens responded with a love emoji.
Tunisia is at its worst state as they borrow loans to pay some of its city workers a result, s. 14% of the total force hasn’t received a salary for some time.
In 2011, dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Al was overthrown after ruling the country for many years. Since then, Ethiopia has never settled when it comes to political issues. Bouden will serve as the 10th prime minister since 2011. He recently told the nation to announce the state of the economy as an emergency case
Most economists have condemned the President for dealing with theft and corruption but forgetting the economy. Bouden said, “Economic actors are losing trust, and we have lost numerous foreign partners,”
The firm’s central bank economist, Mehdi Bhouri, responded that the greatest obstacle to investment is the absence of a roadmap. He asked the government to be clear about its plans and strategies to support its citizens. Bhouri confirmed that he had plans to bring a production industry to Tunisia, but the country’s instability could not allow that.
Mohsen blamed the government for letting the economic pillar suffer, yet other nations are trying to cope. So he seconded the prime minister in declaring economic finance as a major problem.
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