2024-01-09 09:48:47
Moez Soussi offers an enlightening analysis of the challenges facing Tunisia, painting a nuanced picture where resilience, the need for reforms and the delicate balance between immediate emergencies and long-term aspirations intertwine.
Between the need for structural reforms, national resilience and immediate challenges, academic researcher and expert in labor economics and regional development, Moez Soussi, paints a nuanced picture. His analysis highlights the tension between short-term imperatives and longer-term aspirations, highlighting the vitality of human capital while imperatively underscoring the need to rethink the Tunisian economic model.
Two contradictory imperatives
Evoking two seemingly contradictory imperatives, the economist expresses his concern regarding the need for Tunisia to juggle pressing short-term demands with the implementation of long-term structural reforms. He warns of the risk of neglecting urgent short-term needs, particularly in the management of foreign exchange needed for imports, which might have severe repercussions on key sectors such as energy and food.
Moez Soussi also underlines the importance of human capital as an undeniable pillar of Tunisia, despite massive migrations. He insists on the need to reconcile this resilience with essential reforms. Addressing economic growth, the economist deplores the imbalance between short-term cost problems, medium-term technical progress and long-term institutional aspects.
He calls for a deep reflection on the overhaul of the country’s economic model, emphasizing that current development plans are no longer suitable and that Tunisia must make a fundamental change to return to the path to growth.
On another level, Moez Soussi criticized the prioritization, while noting that the excessive attention paid to institutional reforms has sometimes neglected crucial aspects of the productive apparatus. In this sense, he underlines that the current economic model has been obsolete for decades and calls for a more holistic approach to rethink it.
Looking at economic indicators, Soussi points to problems such as over-reliance on subsidies, international price fluctuations and their consequences for the food supply. He calls for a review of energy policies, stressing that continued high subsidies hamper not only public finances, but also the transition to sustainable energy sources.
Faced with this delicate situation, the researcher calls for in-depth reflection on the future economic direction of Tunisia, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach taking into account both immediate emergencies and longer-term reforms to guarantee growth and the country’s lasting prosperity.
Declining productivity
On another level, Moez Soussi notes negative growth rates in recent years, characterizing a worrying decline in productivity. He attributes this situation to an imbalance in the attention paid to institutional and qualitative aspects in the medium term, stressing that Tunisia seems to have lost sight of its productive apparatus. According to him, this gap has led the country to a growth impasse.
In this regard, Soussi calls on Tunisians to take responsibility for this situation, emphasizing the lack of valorization of work and the absence of a real economic model, content with simple development plans.
It suggests in-depth reflection on crucial issues such as the treatment of subsidies, sectoral policies and the role of the State, emphasizing the imperative of defining eight essential pillars in the country’s economic model.
“Today everyone is aware of the decline in productivity in recent years, characterized by negative growth rates.
The institutional aspect, as well as the qualitative aspects in the medium term seem to have been neglected, thus reversing the trend… We are committed to reforming institutions, regulations and the quality of governance, but we have somewhat lost sight of the apparatus productive. This shortcoming seems to have led Tunisia into a growth impasse,” he asserts, while adding that it is unthinkable to persevere with an economic model that has been obsolete for decades, and that this observation does not only arise from post-war events. -2010, but goes back well beyond.
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