Tunisia’s Minister of Finance, Saham Al-Boughdiri, announced on Monday that Tunisia has successfully paid off all its domestic and foreign debts for the year 2023, despite immense financial pressures on its public finances.
This achievement dispels doubts about the country’s ability to meet its debt obligations.
Official documents reveal that Tunisia is set to pay four billion dollars of its foreign debts in 2024, marking a 40 percent increase from the previous year, amid a shortage of external financing available to the government as it grapples with its troubled public finances.
Economists suggest that Tunisia has heavily relied on new domestic loans to meet its foreign debt obligations, which has significantly reduced liquidity and contributed to a decrease in bank financing for the economy.
They believe that the situation will be exceedingly challenging this year due to rising foreign debt and the repeated resort to domestic loans.
The government anticipates that the accumulated public debt will reach around 140 billion Tunisian dinars (about 45.17 billion dollars) in 2024, equivalent to about 79.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an increase from 127 billion dinars.
