Tunisia: strong Italian presence at the 6th Investment Forum
Tunis hosted the 6th Investment Forum, the event organised by the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency representing Tunisia’s major international event on investment. The Forum was attended by 1,200 businesses from over 40 Countries, with a significant representation from Italy with almost 100 business people from different areas, including the sector of mechatronics.
This year’s event was dedicated to the opportunities offered by the new law on investments that came into force last April pursuant to the “Tunisia 2020” international conference and the in-depth analyses on regional development, agriculture, industry 4.0 and the digital economy.
The Forum was opened by Prime Minister Yūssef al-Shāhed, who assured the Government’s commitment to complete the reform process. In particular, al-Shāhed stressed that priority attention has been focused on supporting the business community through policies to facilitate access to credit by small and medium-sized enterprises, financing the strategic programme to boost exports and the economic development of the most backward regions by investing in infrastructure to support large construction projects. The public-private partnership instrument will be especially relied on in the sectors of digital economy, renewable energy sources, port logistics and tourism. The Government will revise the list of economic sectors that continue to be subject to authorization with a view to encouraging foreign investment.
The Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation, Zied Ladhari, reaffirmed Tunisia’s potential for becoming a regional hub for investors, especially thanks to the numerous operational and strategic advantages that it offers through its proximity to European and African markets. The minister concluded by saying that the Government intends to continue passing reforms to create market conditions open to foreign direct investment.
The Tunisian-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised a panel dedicated to Industry 4.0, that included the president of the Italian Association of Automation and Mechatronics (AIDAM), Michele Viscardi, and Calogero Maria Oddo, from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa. The panel discussed the capacity for innovation of the Tunisian industry and the opportunities that the application of mechatronics offers in Tunisia. AIDAM proposed to promote industrial relations in the sector of mechatronics through the establishment of an Italian-Tunisian cooperation platform with the aim of promoting an exchange between the private sector and the academic world on the issue of automation and breakthrough technologies with a high value added.