CARTHAGE - President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali conferred, on Monday, with Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi. Out of keenness to develop communication forums between ministries and citizens and to widen the scope of media coverage of public affairs, the President of the Republic instructed to hold regular meetings between ministers and the various stakeholders in their fields of competence, for straightforward and open debates to be aired by national television, in order to provide complete and pertinent information, lend a listening ear to the concerns of stakeholders in all sectors and to answer their queries.
Besides, the Head of State took interest in furtherance state of the enterprises' creation, in light of the orientations and arrangements he had ordered to stimulate the sense of initiative and consolidate the guidance, support and financing system.
He also directed to step up efforts to broaden guidance capacities within business incubators and centres, in such a way as to raise the number of higher-education graduates who develop one-person enterprises from 4,000 to 6,000 in 2011.
The Head of State recommended, in this regard, to reinforce co-ordination between support structures with a view to energising their interventions. He laid emphasis on materialising the training and guidance programmes at the local level, as part of the initiative spaces, and on increasing co-operation conventions between the national business incubators' network and similar networks on the regional and international planes.
He also recommended to see to the implementation of provisions to facilitate procedures of enterprises' creation and develop financing mechanisms for the benefit of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
During the meeting, the President of the Republic promulgated the law on encouraging enterprises to float their shares. By virtue of this Act, the concerned enterprises are to benefit of firms-tax cuts for a five-year period, as of the year of their joining the Stock Exchange.
President Ben Ali recommended to introduce on a broader scale contents of this law which comes to materialise the orientations set by the 2009-2014 presidential programme to improve the financial market, enhance its role in financing economic enterprises and incite the flotation of at least 30 additional firms.
Besides, the Head of State became acquainted with the purport of the Second Higher Council on Youth, Children, Physical Education and Leisure, held last Saturday with the participation of representatives of political parties, national organisations, the associative fabric and specialised structures.
In this connection, the President of the Republic stressed the importance of making the most of the ideas and proposals that came out of the Council's meeting, in order to contribute to stimulate the various plans and programmes set up to strengthen children's protection, favour youths' guidance, lend a receptive ear to their concerns and aspirations, develop their aptitudes in the various fields and reinforce their contribution in different activities, especially those related to festivities celebrating the International Youth Year.
In another regard, the President of the Republic took interest in progress of the Tunisian-Egyptian relations, on the occasion of holding on the 7th-8th instant, in Cairo, of the Fourteenth High Joint Committee.
The Head of State pointed up, in this regard, the importance to endeavour to advisedly make the most of all possibilities offered to boost bilateral co-operation and hoist it to the highest levels.
© Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2010
