2016 state budget: regional development programme

BARDO, (TAP) - The government statement presented Thursday by Prime Minister Habib Essid at a plenary session of the House of People's Representatives on the draft state budget and finance bill for 2016 has focused, in particular, on the regional development strategy during the five-year plan 2016-2020 period and mainly the regional development programme for 2016.

Tunis-Afrique Presse

November 27, 2015

Thursday, 26 November 2015

This programme is focused on five chapters, the Prime Minister noted. The first provides for entrenching the link and continuity between regions. "70% of the programme will go to asphalting rural tracks, strengthening inter-urban transport and connecting interior regions to the broadband Internet," he indicated.

The second chapter concerns boosting regional development and encouraging investment in regions by means of granting new financial advantages to investors.

The third chapter takes interest in funding regional development notably through the creation of funds specific to regions as part of activities and interventions of the Bank of Funding Small-and Medium-sized Enterprises (BFPME), the Deposit and Consignment Fund (DCF), The Tunisian Company of Guarantee (SOTUGAR) and Investment Companies in Risk Capital (SICAR).

The fourth chapter is dedicated to the improvement of living conditions at local and regional levels through the mobilisation of an amount worth 350 MTD for the connection to drinking water and electricity networks and developing roads as well as an amount of 50 MTD for the support of integrated development in 90 delegations.

The fifth chapter provides for the consolidation of decentralisation and entrenching local governance which achievement requires the completion of the political and institutional system in regions through the organisation of municipal and regional elections, the creation of a new administrative division of the national territory, the consolidation of human resources, encouragement of executives to work in interior regions, the reform of the local tax system and the modernisation of the regional statistics system, said the PM.

For this chapter, Essid noted, additional funds of 80 MTD will be allocated to the development of disadvantaged regions and 90 MTD for the achievement of development projects of rural tracks in priority regions in line, with the implementation of the principle of positive discrimination stated by Tunisia's new constitution.