- PARIS: Tunisia needs $25 billion over the next five years and is counting on donor nations to help make up the budget shortfall, Prime Minister Beji Caid Sebsi said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.
Sebsi said Tunisia had put forward its case for aid ahead of a meeting next week of the Group of Eight countries in Deauville, northwestern France, focusing in part on helping countries in North Africa recover after recent uprisings.
“We will have a gap that can be filled with a contribution from the international community,” Sebsi said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde.
“We estimate $25 billion over five years, that is $5 billion per year. That’s very reasonable,” he added.
The revolts spreading across the Arab world started in Tunisia, where President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January after 23 years of autocratic rule.
Tunisian Finance Minister Jalloul Ayed told Reuters in April that the country would need $4 billion in foreign loans to help it recover in the aftermath of the revolution.