TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – Tunisia’s new government gave an inaugural performance this week by hosting a U.S.-sponsored conference on investment and entrepreneurship designed to boost international confidence in the struggling new democracy.
Tunisia impressed the world by managing a political transition to democracy, installing a new government last month, but its economy has struggled since the 2011 revolution and foreign investors have stayed away during the tumultuous post-revolutionary period.
The conference, which featured a videotaped message from President Barack Obama and was headlined by U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, was seen by Tunisian officials as a way of telling the world that Tunisia was back on track.
“This event gives us an opportunity to tell the whole world, through our guests, that Tunisia is peaceful, that they can walk around without fear, it is a good life and there is no risk to invest,” said Amel Bouchamaoui of the American Chamber of Commerce in Tunisia, one of the event organizers. “We have to calm investors and make them realize that the state is here, it has returned.”
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid opened the conference with promises for economic reform as well as hopes that the long-delayed free trade agreement between the U.S. and Tunisia could be finally completed.