“The factors which have caused the current international financial crisis do not exist in Tunisia,” says Central Bank Governor
Tunis, October 10, 2008- During a press conference, held Friday in Tunis, the Governor of the Tunisian Central Bank, Mr Taoufik Baccar said that “the factors that have caused the current international financial crisis do not exist in Tunisia”.
Mr Baccar said the situation in Tunisia is marked by low reliance on house loans whose rate does not exceed 10% of the GDP, as opposed to 87% in the US.
He also noted that Tunisia took important measures in 2007 to address the problem, among them is the need to inform customers in case of adoption of a variable interest rate, adding that the house loans given by the Tunisian Housing Bank (Banque de l’Habitat), were submitted to an interest rate of 6,75% only.
Concerning Tunisia’s foreign placements, Mr Baccar said that “no opposition was recorded on those placements”, which can be explained by the fact that these placements are usually done through the Central Bank itself.
“The Central Bank, he added, had adopted since the beginning of the crisis in 2007, several measures aiming at reducing the placement ratio in major foreign banks from 75% to 39% currently”. The aim he said is to bring this ratio down to 30%.
Among the other measures taken, is to place deposits with major financial banks rated “A”, and more recently with banks rated “AA”.
The decision not to have recourse in 2008 to international financial markets, as well as the decision to keep the same course of action in 2009, were among the other measures taken, he said.
Mr Baccar also noted that the Tunisian monetary market is characterized by an excess of liquidity , and thus an envelope of 1530 million dinars is available to be injected if necessary.
Insofar as the situation of the Tunisian stock exchange is concerned, he said that the current capitalization is inferior by 20% to the country’s GDP, whereas it may reach 100% in other countries.
Moreover, he added that customer trust in the banking sector in on the increase as testified by the 13,7 % increment of deposits from August 2007 to August 2008.
“No country is immune from a recession” he said, which explains the “importance of the measures, programs and reforms adopted by Tunisia, in view of increasing its production and boosting its competitiveness”.
Mr Baccar also stressed the role of the follow-up committee just set up by the President of the Republic , in order to make sure Tunisian economic efforts continue on solid grounds, he said.
