2012 Tunisia Inflation To Fall to 4%: PM

Tunisia’s inflation rate was expected to be 4 % this year, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said on Tuesday, slowing from a year-on-year rate of 5.5 % for the first four months of 2012.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum conference in Istanbul, Jebali also reiterated his government’s revised growth forecast of 3.5% for 2012, down from the 4.5 percent assumed in an original 2012 budget plan approved in December.

Tunisia’s economy contracted last year following the upheaval that followed the overthrow of veteran leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

“We are already witnessing improvements in our economy. We have improved levels of growth during the first quarter of 2012,” said Jebali.

“We expect that this positive trend will continue and we expect that the Tunisian economy will grow by 3.5% in 2012 … and the inflation rate will remain at 4 percent,” he said.

Jebali said investment in the industrial sector as well as foreign direct investment had increased and that the number of tourists visiting the North African country was “returning back to normal”.

The revolution that ended Ben Ali’s 23-year rule in January 2011 had a domino effect, sparking popular revolts against dictators and autocrats in North Africa and the Middle East. But inevitably it also deepened Tunisia’s economic problems, as the economy contracted 2.2 percent last year, according to Reuters.

The coalition led by a moderate Islamist party now running Tunisia has faced strikes and angry protests over unemployment, put at 18 percent in March, compared with 13 percent before the revolution.