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EU-Tunisia trade agreements did not support development

March 4, 2016 at 10:16 am

Economic agreements signed over the past 20 years between Tunisia and the EU do not support development in the African country; the Anadolu Agency reported a former senior official said yesterday.

Former Governor of the Tunisian Central Bank, Mustapha Kamel Nabli, said: “Everyone recognises the failure in these agreements.” He expressed hope that the new agreements will support development in the country.

Tunisia signed a free trade agreement with the European Union in 1995.

Talks between the north African country and the bloc renewed in 2015 to formulate a comprehensive and in-depth free trade agreement to liberalise trade in the agriculture and services sectors.

According to the European Commission in Tunis, the EU has provided €353 million in support of democratic transition between 2011 and 2015.

Nabli stressed during the press conference, on the need to reach a broad consensus on major economic and social issues “to support the democratic process in Tunisia, and lay a new path for overall development that is able to raise the growth rate and productivity.”

The Tunisian Institute of Statistics said earlier that the GDP growth rate reached 0.8 per cent in 2015, compared with 2.3 per cent in 2014, due to the decline in the majority of economic sectors.

According to the institute, the unemployment rate in Tunisia rose to 15.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, compared with 15.3 per cent in the third.

The tourism industry, the largest economic industry in Tunisia, has declined over the past year following a number of terrorist attacks targeting foreigners.