The Foreign Investment Promotion Agency «FIPA-Tunisia» said that a minimum of TND1.3 billion (around USD400 million) of directed foreign investments have entered the Tunisian economy during the first half of this current year.
By this, they achieved 43 percent of forecasts 2019 which is estimated at around TND3 billion (around one billion American dollars).
The agency added that the foreign investments witnessed a hike of 16.6 percent compared to the same period of last year, and 36.2 percent compared to 2017. This increase reaches 40 percent compared to 2016.
Foreign investments in the services sector underwent a relapse of 34.7 percent, while the investments in energy dropped around 6.9 percent. In return, foreign investments in the industrial field developed a minimum of 64.9 percent.
Tunisian Economic and Financial Expert Saad Boumakhla stated that the development in the industrial sector is a positive indicator given its direct reflect on the VAT of the local economy and available job opportunities.
Its positive indicators are expected to appear on the level of the economic growth in Q2 of the current year.
Boumakhla affirmed the importance of foreign investments on creating an economic revival in Tunisia, saying that these investments managed during 2018 to provide more than 386,000 citizens with job opportunities – which provides social and economic stability.
Remarkably, Tunisia expected economic growth of 3 percent during this fiscal year, however, the international financial structures such as the IMF and the World Bank dropped prospects of this growth and expected it not to exceed 2.8 percent.