Tunisia announced on Tuesday a budget of 57.2 billion dinars ($20 billion), an increase of 2.3% from the 2021 budget, with an expected deficit of 9.3 billion dinars ($3.2 billion), or 6.7% of GDP, according to Reuters.
The budget expects that the total borrowing requirements to reach 18.7 billion dinars next year, bringing the public debt to 82.6% of GDP.
Tunisia's economy has been hit hard by the pandemic after years of stagnation, and the government expects it to grow by 2.6% next year.
Tunisia has opened talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a rescue package, but any assistance is likely to require the government to agree to important and unpopular reforms including subsidy cuts, the public sector wage bill and changes to losing state-owned companies.
Tunisian President Kais Saied in July suspended parliament and seized control of executive powers, halting Tunisian talks with the IMF and major Western lenders who said he needed to restore normal constitutional order.
On the other hand, the Tunisian Ministry of Finance said, in a statement on Friday, that Tunisia’s public debt amounted to approximately 102.2 billion dinars, or 81.5% of GDP, by the end of October 2021, an increase of 12% compared to the same period in 2020.
The outstanding external debt amounted to about 62 billion dinars, or 49% of GDP, while the outstanding domestic debt amounted to about 40.2 billion dinars (32% of GDP). The statement added that debt servicing costs amounted to 11.3 billion dinars during the first ten months of 2021.
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