The Tunisian parliament approved a budget of 19 billion dollars next year, with a deficit of 6.6%. Tunisia expects GDP growth of 4% next year, compared with a record contraction of 7%, according to expectations this year.
Tunisia's public finances are in a difficult situation, as the government is currently projecting a budget deficit of 11.4% of GDP in 2020, the highest in nearly four decades. Tunisia will need $6.9 billion in loans to finance the deficit in 2021, including $4.8 billion in foreign loans. The government is also aware of the possibility of issuing sukuk to finance part of the deficit, without specifying the size of any issuance.
Tunisia plans to get out by next year, of the negative growth rate and achieve a growth of 4%, in addition to increasing per capita income from 9,575 dinars in 2020 to 10,270 dinars in 2021.
The budget bill also favored maintaining the exchange rate of the dinar against the dollar in the range of 2.8 dinars, in addition to improving tax revenues by 13.9%, to reach 29.7 billion dinars.
Next year, wage expenditures will rise to 20.1 billion dinars, or 16.6% of the gross domestic product, against support expenditures of 3.4 billion dinars, including 2.4 billion dinars for food subsidies, 401 million dinars for fuel subsidies, and 600 million dinars for transport subsidies.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
