 So, good morning and welcome to this session, an insight and idea with the head of government of the second Tunisian Republic, Mr. Habib Asid. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Nadine Hani. I present the business news on Al-Arabiya news channel. And it is my pleasure and my honor to be here with you today. Thank you for attending. And thank you, Mr. Asid, for agreeing to sit with us for a one-on-one to discuss your vision for Tunisia five years after the revolution. A logistical note, we're going to do this discussion in Arabic. So if you would like to listen to the translation, there is simultaneous translation, obviously. Welcome to you, Prime Minister. You recently created your second government and you are putting in place the last touches of the five-year economic plan. What are the main points in this plan and what are the directions the government will take? First of all, I'd like to say that this is not the second government. There was a change in the government. As you said, we are putting in place the main direction for Tunisia for 2016 to 2020. We prepared a document which was discussed at all different levels. And we have now moved on to putting in place the five-year plan 2016-2020. We have created sectoral committees and committees for the various regions which have completed the first phases of the work. And currently, we are in almost the final phase of this plan and we are discussing it with the various sectors and regions of the country so that we will be able to present a bill to parliament that it can agree to before we move on to implementation. Could you give us the main points of this plan? Those present with us today would like to know what the future direction of Tunisia will be on various levels, on the economic level obviously, but also the direction your government will take because there are probably directions of action in various sectors and for other levels, not just the economy. Tunisia went through important political developments. There was a popular uprising which led to the removal of the past president and democracy was ushered into Tunisia and this for a variety of reasons. The young people who revolted from the 17th of December 2010 to the 14th of January 2011 had many demands and these demands were on two levels, the freedom of expression, the freedom of the media and the second group of demands were of an economic nature and some of the internal regions of the country were in a very difficult position and this is what led to the uprising. So first we had a political transition, we moved from a dictatorship to a democracy and we have almost finished this transition. Are you satisfied with the political transition? Yes, of course I am. I think that all of the foundations for the creation of a democracy in the country are in place now. We have a constitution which was agreed to by consensus in the constitutional assembly and we are in the process of implementing the constitution. We have a parliament which was elected democratically and with transparency. We have a president who was also elected democratically and with transparency as the constitution calls for and there is a government, it's a coalition government of parties represented in parliament which obtained an absolute majority first on the 5th of February 2015 and then after the change of ministers. Obviously many different issues had to be worked out which were stated in the constitution and the role of this government is to implement the constitutional constitution. We have a constitutional court now and we are satisfied with that. That has to do with the political level. We consider that Tunisia is a young democracy now and the political work was obviously necessary but there are many demands having to do with the economy. So to answer your question about the orientations of this government economically speaking a document which was put in place which outlines the main points of the future orientation of the Tunisian economy there is one point I would like to insist upon which is the following. We have put in place a model for development and the plan which was in place for the last 23 years wasn't successful so the idea is to put in place a new plan. We will concentrate on the regions, the provinces which provinces there are provinces in the interior of the country which were neglected in the past and it is essential that these regions no longer be neglected that attention be paid to them and the constitution in one of its sections says that there should be affirmative action for these regions. So you are talking about the development of the regions and yes especially some of the regions there are 14 of them which did not get their share of development so we will concentrate on them as a priority. Also we will concentrate on social equality because there is disparity between the various provinces and regions so one of the foundations of our plan is social development. We also want Tunisia to not only be a place that foreign investors are attracted to because wages and costs are low. We would like it to be a hub for development especially for North Africa and Africa in general. How? The problem is that everyone wants to achieve these goals. If you look at all of the Arab countries if you were to ask the leaders there what they want for the economy everybody talks about inclusive growth which includes all segments of society and to develop the various regions and provinces but the question is how especially in the context of the security challenges could you outline for me the economic strategy to achieve these goals? Of course there are orientations but we also have mechanisms to achieve these goals. When it comes to the regions let me give you an example to make things clear. I talked about affirmative action and in the consultations between the regions we put in place indicators. The Ministry of Development put in place indicators based on which we can distribute investments based on levels of development in each region and the differences between them. So this is how we will choose projects and assign them to various regions in the country. I talked about our new development plan and I said that we want Tunisia to become a hub for the region. We have abilities and we have resources. As an example when it comes to digital technologies because we have many goals related to the digitalization of the economy and concentrating on IT we have a great deal of capabilities. When it comes to information technology we think we will be able to create at least 50,000 jobs in IT in the next five years and there is a plan to do that. Obviously this plan is part of the larger five-year plan so we will concentrate on that sector and there is another sector we want to concentrate on which is renewable energy because we have a great deal of resources in that sector in Tunisia and there is coordination between Tunisia and the EU to link Tunisia to the European Union and to transfer our renewable energy to Europe. So there are projects which have been identified and included in our future development plan. We will also concentrate on all of the sectors, the private sector, the public sector and the social sector. And these are things which were not included in previous plans. I could give you many examples but it would take too long. But those are the main orientations. I have a question. Your government, and this is a very good thing, has the approval of the various parties in government. It's a coalition government and that's a very good thing and it is positive when it comes to making reforms but there is still a problem with many of the countries of the region face which is the vested interests. So do you think that you can push these plans through parliament and implement them and be able to get by these vested interests? There are many steps before parliament. The document I talked about was obviously put in place after consultations within the coalition which is made up of four political parties but we widen the consultations because without dialogue we can't push it through parliament. All reforms, all orientations are based on dialogue first and we hope that very soon there will be a day in parliament when this document will be discussed within the parliament between all the parties before we start implementation. Tunisia, its quartet, received the Nobel Prize so our experience is unique and I think that will help us to achieve our aims but there must be dialogue, direct dialogue first before we do anything between all of the parties, between all of the organizations with civil society and all of the national organizations which play an important and essential role in our choices. We would like to congratulate you on the Nobel Prize and this is why the international community is getting very interested in Tunisia and its future. But there's still the elephant in the room says the presenter in English which is the security situation after the attacks in Bardo and Seuss and it is estimated that tourism revenue will decline by 45% in 2015 and this will also, the situation will impede international investment so what is your strategy to counter terrorism? In February 2015 we took on many challenges when my government was created. The most important challenge is the security challenge and the second one is the social challenge and the third is the economic challenge which we just discussed and I talked about Tunisia's choices and orientations when it comes to the economy. When it comes to the security challenge, it was one of the priorities of this government. The situation was difficult and a preliminary plan was put in place to fight terrorism which includes defense and attack and obviously we consulted with the security organizations and the armed forces. As you know three terrorist attacks were carried out in Tunisia and they had an extremely negative impact on the tourism sector which is of the most importance in Tunisia because it employs 400,000 people and represents 11% of GDP. Immediate measures were taken of course because obviously terrorism has a direct impact on tourism, on the direct jobs in tourism and of course there are people employed indirectly in arts and crafts for example traditional crafts and other sectors. I think that our tourism sector is on a crossroads right now and we're carrying out reform. It needs to be updated doesn't it? Yes and we're carrying out deep reforms which are necessary. Our tourism sector was created in the 60s and we have experience obviously in this sector and we would like to make use of this situation to carry out reforms. How? Diversification. We want to diversify tourism because we concentrated mainly on our beaches and on coastal tourism so we would like to diversify. We have cultural resources that are not being utilized in the best manner in tourism. So diversification, bring in cultural tourism, environmental tourism. All of these things will be integrated in the future plan which will be part of the 2016-2025 year plan. There are circumstantial measures which have been taken to support tourism so that we will be able to get past this very difficult situation affecting tourism and the economy in general. One of the main economic challenges is what happened in the sector of phosphates and in industry. Many companies have moved their factories to other countries or have started investing in other countries in North Africa. Yes, that's true. How will you be able to attract investments into this sector and how will you deal with worker strikes in your country that have impeded and sometimes stopped work in the factories? You have the second largest phosphate industry in the world. It is true that at the beginning of 2015 the factories stopped working, especially in February and March 2015 because of various factors, social factors, political factors. And therefore the protection of phosphates stopped for two months in Tunisia. But thanks to dialogue, thanks to coordination between the various political parties and national organizations we were able to get back on track. And we reached an acceptable production level at the end of this year. There were some circumstantial problems in the phosphate sector and some other sectors. And all of the planned investments in phosphate production and chemical products related to phosphates are back on track. And phosphates are being sold again on international markets. Obviously the transitional period had an impact and some investments didn't go to Tunisia but to other countries but we have a great deal of experience in the production of phosphates and the chemical products extracted from phosphates so that we hope we will go back to our previous level of investments. How will you attract investments? Are you going to give certain facilities to investments? Are there incentives? How will you attract direct foreign investment once again? Because as you said, the security challenge is still there and you will face it, but how? I'd like to clarify something. In 2015 the latest figures show that foreign investment in Tunisia rose by 17% in 2015. So there hasn't been a decline. And when it comes to investments in industry there was a rise as well. But we need more because compared to 2014 investments are better but not compared to 2010. We have a clear strategy when it comes to investments which will translate into a number of measures. The government has put in place an investment plan which has been transferred to parliament and we hope it will be agreed to soon. There are a number of incentives to foreign investments which hopefully will attract them to Tunisia and we hope that that will have a positive impact on investments. Because we would like to encourage investments internally and externally. You have a PPP plan, so partnerships between the private sector and the public sector. Yes, it has been agreed to in parliament and hopefully we will implement it soon. This is part of the reform plan put in place by the first government of the Second Republic. One of its main tasks is to implement the constitution obviously and to carry out deep reforms so that we will be able to do better than we did before. All of these measures have one goal which is to create jobs. You are putting in place a plan called the National Plan for Employment. Employment, unemployment was one of the reasons why there was an uprising. People who don't have jobs will perhaps be attracted to terrorism and the figures are scary. University graduates unemployment is more than 30%, young people 15%, so what are the main highlights of your plan? I would like to clarify something. When we talk about jobs, we talk about public sector jobs. So there can be jobs but there can also be small companies. I use the figures from the IMF report. We are trying to create jobs. Obviously that is one of the biggest challenges we face. There are some protests taking place in parts of the country as we speak. One of the main reasons for that is unemployment and it is one of the highest priorities of the current Tunisian government. There are measures which must be put in place immediately and we have put in place those measures this year but we know that they are not sufficient because of the size of the problem and because of all the problems which accumulated before the revolution and since the revolution. And we don't have a magic wand to solve all of these problems in a short period of time. So we must remain determined, we must follow up and we must put in place a clear plan and implement it. We must raise awareness as well and convince young people and the unemployed that we can't solve all of the problems in a short period of time. Obviously there are some political parties which take advantage of the situation but we try to deal wisely with the situation and reach a common understanding and it's our duty to find solutions but we won't find them immediately. There is a plan as you said which is part of the five-year plan especially in the Ministry of Employment and Professional Training which we will lean upon to implement our plan. There are plans for training because one of the problems we face is that skills are not matched to job opportunities. There's training in the universities but that is not related to the demands but obviously you need a push from the government. How can you create training plans? We have programs which we have started implementing to guide the unemployed and try to accompany them through the whole process and give them the necessary skills which will make them adapted to obtain jobs in the private sector and the public sector or to create small companies. Our time is almost over but I have two questions. I don't know how the half hour went by so fast. When I first read the details of the Tunisian economy and the security situation the first thing that came to my mind was a question I heard from other people before I came into the session. How can a country like Tunisia which was one of the most open countries in the Arab world and the most advance when it came to women's rights and law supporting women's rights how come so many young people have been attracted to terrorism and not been integrated into their economy? Why have they espoused radical ideas? Nobody can understand that because it seemed that the environment in Tunisia wasn't conducive to that. You had another question or would you like me just to answer that first? I'm sorry we don't have much time. Tunisia has passed through an important period since Burkiba who was the father of the Tunisian Republic and who established the modern Tunisia and the choices were quite clear from the beginning and this country founded was founded based on those foundations established by President Burkiba and we would not have been able to enjoy all these freedoms in favour of women in Tunisia without these foundations and the stability of the country was thanks to the foundations established by former President Burkiba but in the history of modern Tunisia we saw many mistakes that were carried out maybe not much attention was given to the young people and the young people might have gone to Syria or other countries 60% of the young people might have been attracted to such ideologies because they lack jobs sources of income and they maybe were attracted by certain associations ideologies but they were unable to find proper jobs or to find an alternative to an acceptable job because he belongs or is affiliated to a poor family and needs to earn some money and that involved about 60% of the young people 40% of those who were attracted by the ideologies were influenced directly by these terrorist organizations and they do believe that these organizations might allow them to enter into paradise directly these are the two categories of young people that we find to have been attracted by these ideologies let us finish on a positive note what is your vision for Tunisia? how do you see Tunisia in a number of years from now? if you were able to implement these plans that you are carrying out now can you describe us your vision of Tunisia in the future? personally I am always optimistic and the democratic transition that we witnessed is something exceptional and all countries have acknowledged that fact we have carried out what was very difficult of course there were dangers and problems that we had to face but we now have to carry out exceptional efforts and the Tunisians have to be able to go back to work and they should be able to overcome difficulties we have lived difficult periods and during all these difficult periods we were victorious we overcame challenges and difficulties and we developed our country and I am quite optimistic we have to be show solidarity we have to be we have to know that this can be carried out through dialogue, consensus and especially through hard work because without hard work and hard efforts we won't be able to improve the situation of our country thank you very much Prime Minister for your time and for answering our questions and God willing you have found this meeting quite interesting thank you