Tunisia

1. Doing Business 2013 ranks Tunisia 50th out of 185 economies, recording a 5 point decrease from last year. This decrease reflects declines in 9 out of 10 indicators.
2. Of the 5 countries covered by the Investing Across Sectors indicators in Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia has the fewest limits on foreign equity ownership. The country has opened up the majority of the sectors of its economy to foreign capital participation. As a notable exception, the electricity transmission and distribution sectors are closed to foreign ownership. Furthermore, these industries operate under monopolistic market structures with the publicly owned company STEG as the only provider. While foreign capital participation is not restricted by law in electricity generation, the public monopoly of STEG together with a high perceived difficulty of obtaining the required operating license make it difficult for foreign investors to engage. Foreign investors who want to set up a subsidiary in Tunisia (Tunis) will have to allow 19 days and go through 14 different procedural steps, a process that is more complex than the IAB regional and global averages.
3. Tunisia’s economic freedom score is 58.6, making its economy the 95th freest out of 183 countries in the 2012 Index. Its score is virtually unchanged last year, though there were wide swings in individual categories of economic freedom. Tunisia is ranked 11th out of 17 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and its overall score is just below the world average.

Source: World Bank