Political instability, corruption and difficulties of access to bank financing impede business climate

Political, social and security instability, corruption, difficulties of access to bank financing and administrative procedures complexity are the main obstacles in the business climate development in Tunisia, according to a survey conducted by the Tunisian Institute of competitiveness and quantitative studies (French:ITCEQ).

The survey carried out, based on sample of 1,200 economic enterprises operating in the sectors of industry and services over all the governorates and employing 6 thousand persons, revealed that these impediments can slow down the establishment of new enterprises, the creation of jobs and cutting unemployment rates, informed ITCEQ Director-General Habib Zitouna.

This survey tackled various aspects pertaining to business climate including the political, social and security situation as well as corruption and their impacts on the investment pace in the country.

ITCEQ Deputy Director Haithem Zammeli said that 51% of the companies surveyed consider that the political instability and the lack of visibility represent an obstacle to the development of the enterprise activity and 39% among them explained the failure of their investments, in 2016, by the political instability.

Social instability is the second impediment of the business climate development in Tunisia, according to one third of the investigated companies, the social situation impedes the development of companies and the creation of investment opportunities and one third of enterprises do not intend to extend their projects.

Zammeli added that security impedes development and the business climate improvement despite the security success achieved in 2016, underlining that the security situation in Libya had an impact on the Tunisian business climate.

48% of the sample stated that the security instability in Libya paralysed the development of the enterprises activities.

As regards corruption, 56% of the surveyed companies emphasised the worsening of this phenomena and quarter of business managers reported that they were requested to bribe.

source: TAP