A recent study published by the Tunisian Institute of Competitiveness and Quantitative Studies (ITCEQ), reveals that the business climate in Tunisia deteriorated further in 2022, with corruption being identified as the main constraint for economic operators in the country. .
It also shows that the business leaders surveyed have an increasingly negative perception of the proliferation of corruption in the institutional sector, with 70% considering it a “major constraint”.
Analysis by firm size shows that corruption weighs much more heavily on small firms (72%) than on medium and large firms (61 and 63% respectively), the report adds, noting that the complexity Administrative procedures and their cumbersomeness largely explain the proliferation of the phenomenon of corruption.
Secondly, the instability of the political climate is, according to companies, one of the reasons behind the reluctance to invest in Tunisia, notes the same source.
With such a perception, companies fail to have a clear vision to engage in investments, “63% explaining it by the absence of a clear long-term economic vision and more than half (53%) cites political instability as the reason for this choice”.
The business climate is also impacted by bank financing which remains a structural cost constraint, the report notes.
Access to credit has become increasingly restrictive even for large companies (54% compared to 28% in 2020), in the same way as small and medium-sized companies, which have become increasingly vulnerable and run out of liquidity in the current international context, underlines the ITCEQ.
According to the study, bad competition practices and the parallel market are denounced by two-thirds of companies as major constraints in the same way as deficiencies in the macro-economic and legal framework.