IMF to hold talks with Tunisia next week on financial aid deal

An IMF team will hold talks with the Tunisian government next week on a financial aid program the country requested last year, a spokesman said Thursday.

The North African nation in mid-November requested a loan program from the Washington-based crisis lender, and the International Monetary Fund will conduct a "virtual" mission February 14-22, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters.

Since the request was submitted, fund staff have held "technical discussions" with government officials "focusing on the immediate economic challenges, the country's priorities and the reforms to be implemented in order to overcome the crisis in the country," Rice said.

"Those discussions are ongoing with a view to a new financing program."

The IMF team will provide a readout at the end of the mission on the status of the negotiations, he added.

The country is facing a deep economic crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, with debt soaring to nearly 100 percent of GDP.

Tunisia's gross domestic product plunged by almost nine percent in 2020 and was only partially offset by a three-percent bounceback last year.

Since dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled by mass protests in 2011, Tunisia's troubled democratic transition has failed to revive the economy.

President Kais Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament on July 25 last year, and the requested IMF bailout would be the fourth since the revolution.

Tunisian authorities say they are optimistic about reaching a deal by the end of this quarter, but an IMF official in the country told AFP last month the economy requires "very deep, structural reforms."