Day: September 8, 2023

Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia, Marouane El Abassi, said that monetary policy and the exchange rate in Tunisia are still under control despite the difficult circumstances, adding that the BCT has referred the draft exchange rate law and the financial integration bill to the Prime Ministry.
In a meeting with President Kais Saied during his visit to the BCT headquarters on Friday, El Abassi added that the monetary situation in Tunisia is better than predicted for 2022, despite the circumstances of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
El Abassi pointed out that Tunisians abroad have contributed to hard currency revenues over the past three years. The latter have exceeded the revenues of the tourism sector and better resources can be provided.
With regard to the draft laws on foreign exchange and financial integration, he expressed his hope that they would soon be approved by a cabinet meeting and then submitted to the Assembly of People’s Representatives, as they are «one of the priorities for reforming the financial situation in Tunisia.»
He considered that the new foreign exchange law will, among other things, allow young people to pay electronically, while the financial integration law will help to prevent small and micro businesses and private companies from leaving the organised sector due to financial difficulties and moving to the parallel sector.
El Abassi pointed to the increase in liquidity on the Tunisian market to around TND 20 billion, stressing the importance of greater transparency in financial transactions and control over the parallel market.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

During his visit to the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Fisheries on Friday, President Kais Saied considered that there are lobbies working to abuse Tunisians by fabricating crises related to food products such as milk in order to inflame social conditions.
In a video released by the Presidency of the Republic, he stressed that the state will confront with the full force of the law all those who seek to starve Tunisians by fabricating crises affecting many items such as medicines, milk, coffee, sugar and rice.
He added that they invent crises in the period between elections to use them as a bargaining chip to get what they want, while they have a lot of money at their disposal during the election campaign.
Kais Saied said that it is necessary to have a strategic stock of milk, stressing that the state will not leave the Tunisian people without basic foodstuffs.
The President of the Republic added that Tunisia is full of wealth and that the Ministry of Agriculture has the experts to perform miracles. Communitarian agricultural companies, such as the one set up in the Zaghouan governorate, are capable of absorbing large numbers of unemployed, when Tunisians are provided with legal mechanisms.
He promised that in the future Tunisia will have a strategic supply of grain to achieve total food independence, noting that he will work to fulfil the will of Tunisians and cleanse the country and its institutions of those who do not want to serve the Tunisian state.
He called on Tunisians to work to create wealth in a healthy atmosphere that would give them all their rights after providing them with the necessary mechanisms and cleansing the country of lobbies.
He also urged that everyone be allowed to import fodder so that no one party monopolises the market, and encouraged the creation of communitarian companies until the dispersal of property is ended.
In the same context, he stressed that he will work to facilitate things in order to create thousands of jobs, adding that he will not stand idly by in the face of those who try to falsify the facts by spreading chaos and rumours to achieve their ends.
For his part, Minister of Agriculture, Abdelmonem Belati, stressed that Tunisia will work to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of durum wheat next season, with a supply of around 12 million quintals, pointing to the efforts being made in the fodder sector in relation to milk and meat production.
The minister added that Tunisia is looking forward to a good season for dates and olives, which it is working to collect in the best conditions. Tunisia will produce about 200 thousand tonnes of olive oil this season, exceeding last year’s production by about 20 thousand tonnes, he pointed out.
The minister said that the adoption of good governance by his ministry has enabled it to save 4.8 million dinars compared to last year in the distribution of subsidised fuel in the sea fishing sector. He noted that some parties obtained this fuel illegally and with the complicity of the administration.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

President Kais Saied called on Friday for the revision of article 25 of the Tunisian Central Bank’s statute law, issued in 2016, in order to allow it to lend directly to the state in support of its efforts to finance the state budget.
In a meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT), Marouane El Abassi, and the Deputy Governor, Nadia Kamha, he pointed out that “the time has come, in terms of budget financing, to review this article on commercial banks’ lending to the State and to take advantage of the benefits generated by these loans”.
He considered that the provisions of the 1958 law on the Central Bank were better than the 2016 law on the issue of the independence of the issuing institution. The head of state stressed that some articles of the 2016 law directly serve the interests of commercial banks and allow them to acquire significant portions of the interest on loans granted.
“The independence of the Central Bank of Tunisia does not mean independence from the state, but it must be in line with the policies of the state and it is necessary to distinguish between independence in the monetary field and independence in the field related to the state budget,” Saied stressed.
It is worth noting that Article 25 of the 2016 law on the Central Bank of Tunisia stipulates that “the central bank may not grant facilities in the form of advances or loans to the treasury or directly acquire bonds issued by the state”.
“Unfortunately, regardless of the Central Bank’s independence and its role in controlling prices, it would have been better not to include this article, especially in this difficult period, because it is the commercial banks that benefit from it,” Saied pointed out.
He stressed that the central bank’s main role in the national economy is to control monetary inflation and that the bank’s departments are also in line with state policies.
Several parties have called for the revision of the Tunisian Central Bank’s statute law approved in 2016, especially the article on the central bank’s independence, in order to support the state’s efforts to raise financial resources to finance the state budget amid the impossibility for Tunisia to borrow on the global financial markets, as no agreement has been reached with the International Monetary Fund so far.
The Tunisian Economic Observatory also called, in a press release issued on 22 June 2023, to reconsider the role of the Central Bank of Tunisia as one of the main pillars of public policy development, especially that the separation of monetary policy from financial and economic policy through the independence of the bank has contributed to disrupting the formulation of effective public policies to achieve economic development.
In its published report entitled “Who determines monetary policy in Tunisia? The Central Bank is Hostage to the International Monetary Fund”, the Observatory highlighted the urgent need to redefine the mission of the Central Bank of Tunisia in line with the needs of the economic situation, in order to promote investment and generate growth, and to break with the International Monetary Fund’s approach, which limits the Central Bank’s mission and restricts it to fighting inflation.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

The first photovoltaic charging station for electric cars was inaugurated on Friday at the seat of the National Agency for Energy Management (ANME).
This project, which includes a photovoltaic station with a capacity of 3 kWp, storage batteries and a 22 kW recharging point, will be used to recharge ANME’s electric car, which is used to distribute the agency’s mail and transport its staff to meetings.
The station in question was commissioned with the support of battery manufacturer ASSAD, car manufacturer BYD, a 100% Tunisian photovoltaic panel manufacturer, Alphanis, and solar panel installer SUN SOLUTION.
Speaking at a press conference held on Friday, ANME Director General Fethi Hanchi said the project aims to show how solar energy could be used to guarantee 100% green transport.
A promotional campaign will be launched to encourage the use of this solution by public and private companies with a fleet of cars for professional use, he indicated, specifying that the ANME will support these companies so that they can acquire electric cars and equip their fleets with solar shading systems.
Towards doubling the number of recharging points and identifying pricing models
There are currently nearly a hundred electric cars on the road in Tunisia, the majority of which are imported by offshore companies, Hanchi pointed out.
“Studies have shown that one of the challenges facing the development of electric mobility is the consumer’s anxiety about the availability of recharging facilities for electric cars,” he added.
“Nearly 60 electric charging points have been installed throughout France. ANME plans to double this number by the end of 2024. Charging electric cars is currently free of charge,” he specified.
The official further indicated that the ANME had been commissioned by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mines to conduct a study on the pricing of electric charging.This study is expected to be finished early 2024.
Regarding the cost of electric cars, he said that a conventional car in the same range consumes 10 times more than an electric car, including installation (charging points and shading).
In terms of cost, users can offset the difference between these two types of cars by making energy savings.
He called in this regard, the banks to at least consider the possibility of financing the price difference between electric and conventional cars.
Customs duties on electric car recharging equipment were cut to 10%, while value added tax was reduced to 7% from January 1 to December 31, 2023, according to Article 24 of the 2023 Finance Act, published on December 23 in the Official Gazette of the Tunisian Republic (JORT).

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse