2023-05-28 10:56:23
The Director General of the Office of Tunisians Abroad, Mohamed Mansouri, expected an increase in remittances from Tunisians working abroad to more than 12 billion dinars ($3.9 billion) during the current year, at a time when the country is grappling with mounting economic challenges.
Al-Mansouri told the Tunisian News Agency that remittances from workers abroad in hard currency amounted to regarding 3 billion dinars as of May 20, an increase of 6 percent over the same period last year.
“Remittances of Tunisians abroad amounted to 2.949 billion dinars, compared to 2.783 billion dinars during the same period last year,” Mansouri said.
He added, “It is expected that these transfers will reach a new record at the end of the current year and exceed the threshold of 12 billion dinars, compared to 9.4 billion in 2022.”
He said that these numbers, which exceeded the volume of foreign direct investments during the past year, “represent real support for the Tunisian economy, especially the contribution to the national reserve of hard currency by regarding 20 percent.”
According to what Mansouri said, the remittances of workers abroad are still less than the real potential of the Tunisian community abroad, which number more than two million people, calling for reducing the cost of transfers through Tunisian banks and adopting digital solutions to facilitate the sending of money to the country, in order to eliminate transfers outside official channels.
It is noteworthy that Tunisia, which is heavily indebted at the level of 80 percent of the gross domestic product, obtained preliminary approval from the International Monetary Fund in mid-October to obtain a new loan of regarding two billion dollars to help it overcome its serious financial crisis.
But the talks reached a dead end due to the lack of a firm commitment from Tunisia to restructure more than 100 public institutions burdened with debt and to remove subsidies on some basic products.
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