TUNIS- Tunisia on Friday offered for sale its shares in the Nouvlair airline company confiscated from a son-in-law of late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in the 2011 uprising, Karama Holding Company said.

The last date for submitting offers is May 19 at 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT).

Karama Holding Company is in charge of disposing of property confiscated from Ben Ali's relatives after the revolution.

The Tunisian state owns 23.8% of the shares in Nouvlair. It was previously owned by Belhassan Trabelsi, Ben Ali's son-in-law who fled the country after the revolution, but the state seized them among several real estate and other properties.

Selling shares in several companies and banks is among the proposals Tunisia's government has made to the International Monetary Fund to qualify for more financial aid.

Tunisia, suffering from its worst financial crisis, is trying to agree a new financing program with the IMF in exchange for unpopular reforms including subsidy cuts and sell-offs of some state companies.

The IMF has urged reforms to reduce spending on state-owned companies, subsidies and the state payroll but the powerful UGTT union has rejected this approach at a time of high unemployment and threatened to launch a general strike.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Heinrich)