A single figure is enough to sum up ten years of private bond issuances in Tunisia: 96.9%. This is the share of funds raised that stayed within the financial sector. In other words, out of 100 dinars borrowed on this market, barely 3 went to those who produce, sell, or export. A capital market intended to irrigate the real economy has become a closed vase.
The paradox becomes evident in 2026. The Tunis Stock Exchange experiences a 48% surge in the TUNINDEX in the first half, with more than two billion dinars traded, while the private bond segment remains in the shadows. This gap suggests that the trouble does not lie in savers’ disinterest, but in deep constraints—regulatory, cyclical, and behavioral.
This is the thesis advanced by a study published in the September 2026 issue of the Review of the Financial Market Council. It analyzes the period from 2016 to 2025 using data from the CMF, the BVMT, and Tunisie Clearing. Its finding is unequivocal: of nearly 8,900 million dinars issued over ten years, 96.9% went to the financial sector.
A market that primarily serves those who drive it
This near exclusivity is not a matter of chance in the calendar; it is a logic of use. Banks, which weigh in at more than half of the cumulative issuances, treat the market as a venting valve: they turn to it when liquidity tightens and when their prudential ratios require it, then withdraw as soon as other sources become available.
Their issuances fell to 25 million dinars in 2024, before rising to 922 in 2025. Leasing companies, by contrast, issue out of structural necessity, because their model requires long and regular resources. As for industrial and commercial companies, they represent only 3.1% of the total, and the industrial sector has recorded no issue since 2021. The 2025 peak, at 1,506 million dinars, therefore looks more like a bank-led catch-up than a revival of the real economy.
Investors becoming increasingly inward-looking
