TUNIS — Debt-ridden
Tunisia unveiled a 2022
budget on Tuesday that will see it borrow almost $7 billion more, as it seeks
to stimulate an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
اضافة اعلان
The 2022 finance law boosts spending by over
three percent year on year to 57.3 billion dinars ($19.8 billion, 17.6 billion
euros),
finance minister Sihem Boughdiri said.
The deficit is expected to hit some 6.2
percent of gross domestic product (GDP), she told reporters.
The government will borrow almost 20 billion
dinars ($6.9 billion, 5.7 billion euros) to cover 2022 expenditures, bringing
government debt to 82.6 percent of GDP.
Around two thirds of the figure is to come
from foreign lenders, and the remainder from domestic sources, Boughdiri said.
Tunisia has suffered years of economic woes
exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, with high inflation and unemployment
at around 18 percent. Foreign debt in 2021 hit 100 percent of GDP.
In order to replenish state coffers, the
authorities are also hoping to reach a bailout deal with the
International Monetary Fund, Boughdiri confirmed.
"Negotiations with the IMF will restart
at the beginning of 2022," Boughdiri said.
She said 80 experts had formulated "a
program of reforms in several sectors".
Tunisia's previous government had been in
talks with the IMF over a new bailout package, when President
Kais Saied in
July sacked ministers and seized far-reaching powers.
A deal with the global lender could entail
politically painful reforms, such as cutting subsidies on basic goods or
tackling the wage bill of a public sector that employs some 680,000 of the
country's 12 million inhabitants.
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