“Tunisia has repaid all its 2023 domestic and external debts,” says Nemsia

Tunisia has repaid all its 2023 domestic and external debts despite all public finance constraints in 2023 and the difficulty to access foreign funding," Finance Minister Sihem Nemsia said on Monday. "In 2023, public finances faced major challenges due to a very tense regional and international context and an exacerbation of climate change, leading to a rise in inflation rates and in the prices of staple commodities on a global scale," she added at the opening of a debate on "2024 Finance Law and new tax provisions" held on Monday in Tunis by the Tunisia Council of Joint Chambers (CCM). "All these constraints have had a major impact on Tunisia's financial balance, sharply reducing the authorities' room for manoeuvre in controlling debt levels and meeting essential and sometimes unpredictable public expenditure, despite the good results achieved in raising tax resources and improving the performance of some sectors (services, tourism, etc.)," she pointed out. Nemsia indicated that "the Tunisian project of major reforms is a global project characterised by a balanced vision between a social component placing the middle class and vulnerable groups among its top priorities, and an economic component aimed at rewarding work and boosting private initiative and wealth creation." The Finance Law 2024 fits in with this approach and seeks to ensure a balance between two fundamental challenges: Reboot the economy and restore the investor's confidence, and gradually rebalance public finances by encouraging comprehensive and sustainable development, combating the financial exclusion of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), establishing a system that enshrines tax justice, combating tax evasion and integrating the informal economy. This law seeks to "maximise tax benefites by gearing them towards promising sectors such as renewables, green, blue and circular economies and sustainable development." "It also aims to further enshrine the social role of the State by supporting the financial inclusion of vulnerable and low-income groups, guaranteeing the supply of staple commodities to the market and adopting alternative instruments to finance subsidy expenditure," she said. "The 2024 Finance Law also provides for a number of measures to support the agriculture, fisheries and water resources sector, by continuing to support small farmers, facilitating their access to financing and reducing the tax burden on certain fodder products," Nemsia underlined. However, this law failed to provide measures to remove tax benefits granted to economic operators or to increase the tax burden, the FinMin considered, adding that "Quite the contrary, it has introduced a range of measures aimed at supporting companies in order to preserve their survival, support their restructuring, improve their cash flow, ease their access to finance and encourage private initiative." Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse