Tunisia Way

Significant measures have been taken to consolidate and modernise the banking environment and to improve the diversification of the financing sources. Privatisation of the banking environment has been accelerated, the legal and regulatory framework modernised by introducing universal banking and the alignment to international prudential standards. The action plan targets enhanced banking operations by consolidating the financial base, strengthening prudential and supervisory regulations, and modernising the management methods to improve the quality of services.

The info-communication sector which witnesses, on a worldwide scale, a significant phase of development, on the structural level as from the point of view of services and networks, records, in Tunisia, remarkable progress.

Thanks to the clearsighted vision of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a strong impulse was given to the ICT sector as a large growth vector of economic development. The driving role that plays this sector in favor of the economic and social development sets it as one of the priorities of the governmental orientations within the framework of the Ninth Economic and Social Development Plan (1997-2001), which devotes nearly 1,5 billion Tunisian Dinars to investment in this sector while the Eighth Plan (1992-1996) has reserved 860 million Tunisian Dinars. Indeed, the Tunisian sector of technologies of communications currently records a remarkable growth and an overall dynamics.

Railways

Tunisia inherited much of its rail transport system from the French and the Tunisian Government has developed infrastructure further. The railways are operated by the Société Nationale de Chemins de Fer Tunisiens (SNCFT), the Tunisian national railway. A modernisation program is currently underway. It has a total of 2,152 km consisting of 468 km of standard gauge rail ways and 1,674 kilometres of narrow gauge. Tunis has a light rail system. In the south of Tunisia, there is a narrow gauge railway called the Sfax-Garsa Railway which delivers phosphates and iron ore to the harbour at Sfax. Tunisia has rail links with the neighbouring country via the Ghardimaou-Souk Ahras line, and another connection to Tébessa, however, the latter link is currently not used. There are no railways yet in neighbouring Libya which would require gauge conversion for efficient connections.