The Tunisian government and the European Investment Bank, the European Union’s financing institution, signed two financing contracts worth up to 38 million euros, with the Tunisian Company for Water Exploitation and Distribution, to provide drinking water in Greater Tunis, including the capital, Tunis, and in three states: Ben Arous, Manouba, and Ariana. ».

It is expected that European funding will allow the development and improvement of the necessary infrastructure to secure the entire drinking water supply system in the major states of Tunisia. This project will have a very important impact on the local population, numbering approximately 2.8 million people in Greater Tunis and the states of Ben Arous, Manouba and Ariana, who They will benefit from it in the short term, and the funding will also allow the entire population to be supplied with drinking water until the year 2040.

The European Investment Bank is an essential financial partner for Tunisia, and its total investments since 2007 amount to approximately 4 billion euros, to support projects in areas important to the Tunisian economy, such as water and sanitation, industry, social infrastructure, training, transportation, energy, private sector support, and commercial projects. .

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is also working to strengthen its efforts to support the Tunisian economy, by increasing the limit of trade financing currently approved for the benefit of the Bank of Tunisia, from 20 to 50 million dollars, with the aim of helping local exporters and suppliers to continue their activities during the “Corona pandemic.”

This extension falls within the framework of the trade facilitation program of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is dedicated to promoting foreign trade, on the basis that maintaining the pattern of trade exchanges during this crisis is of great importance to the global economy, and the bank has increased, in the face of the large demand, the limits of its financing. Trade, bringing it to 3 billion euros for the current year 2020.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development works with five Tunisian partner banks, whose combined value exceeds the limits of commercial financing available to them about $100 million. Since the start of its operations in Tunisia in 2012, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has invested about 945 million euros in 46 projects and has provided assistance. Technology for approximately 1,200 small enterprises, more than two-thirds of which are located in the interior regions of the country.