"Despite challenges, we are determined to carry out necessary reforms in accordance with a clear and well-defined timetable," President Béji Caid Essebsi said in his speech on the second day of the G7 Summit currently held in Germany.
Addressing guests of this 41st Summit, the President shed light on the strides made by the country on the pathway to democracy since the Deauville Summit and the challenges confronting it, particularly unemployment and terrorism.
"Tunisia went through serious crises but managed to take control of its destiny and succeed where others failed owing to the sense of responsibility of its elite and political class and its republican army," he underlined.
The problems that caused the Revolution to break out have not been solved yet, especially "a chronic unemployment" (620,000 jobless people including 250,000 graduates), local and social inequalities in addition to an ongoing economic slump, the President said.
Faced with this situation and considering the slowdown in investment and weak economic growth, Tunisia's debts increased 58% in four years, the President reminded.
He said terrorism is "regional" and "rather a global" phenomenon which is recent in Tunisia.
"Tunisia is not prepared to it, since independence it has focused investment in education and human development at the expense of security forces and the army who are poorly equipped and inadequately trained to face up terrorist threats"
This could be a message for the first world powers to support Tunisia in its fight against terrorism, a phenomenon that requires the implementation of a joint regional strategy.
Source: http://www.tap.info.tn/en/index.php/politics2/27582-tunisia-determined-t...
