Tunisia to seek $4 billion loan from IMF

Tunisia has disclosed plan to seek a $4 billion loan program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).While disclosing this on Friday April 30, 2021, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi said politicians faced a “last opportunity” to save the economy.Mechichi stated that he expected talks, starting next week, to last about two months.He added that he had “confidence” Tunisia could secure financial support to help it through an economic crisis that has been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”All efforts must be unified in Tunisia because we consider that we have reached the last opportunity and we must use it to save the economy,” he said in an interview.He said he wanted a three-year loan program and added that details of an agreement with powerful labor unions, seen as vital to unlock foreign funding, were still being finalized.He said Tunisia would rationalize rather than cut subsidies and said it was considering sales of minority stock it holds in some businesses in order to finance investment in the most important publicly owned companies.The IMF has previously said Tunisia should target urgent reforms of state-owned enterprises, subsidies and the large public sector wage bill.