Tunisian Finance Minister Sihem Boughdiri Nemsia announced that her country had paid off 11.6 billion dinars ($3.7 billion) in outstanding foreign loans during the first half of this year.
This came in statements made by the Minister of Finance during a session of the Tunisian Parliament to ratify the financing agreement concluded on May 16 between Tunisia and a group of local banks to finance the state budget, according to a statement by the House of Representatives.
The value of the financial loan, which was collected from local banks, is 156 million euros ($173 million), in addition to another loan worth 16 million dollars.
Requirements of the year
“The Tunisian Republic has fulfilled its commitments to repay foreign loans. By the end of last June, we had repaid 11.6 billion dinars ($3.7 billion),” Namsia said.
According to previous statistics from the Ministry of Finance, Tunisia is required to pay 24.7 billion dinars ($7.96 billion) during the current year. It explained that the gross domestic product grew by 0.2% during the first quarter of the current year, on an annual basis.
Tunisia suffered a severe economic crisis exacerbated by the repercussions of the Corona pandemic, followed by the rise in the cost of importing energy and basic materials following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in late February 2022.
