In a statement on its website, Manama-based Gulf Finance House said Tunis Financial Harbour, as the project is called, “will offer a bridge between the $15bn EU trade bloc, Tunisia’s own dynamic economy and rapidly-developing North African and sub-Saharan economies”.
It said the $3bn, mixed-use waterfront development is expected to have a permanent population of 110,000 residents across its 500 hectares, and will create 16,000 jobs for the Tunisian economy.
In announcing its plans to create an offshore financial centre, Tunisia becomes the latest in a parade of countries seeking to boost their domestic economies by emulating such recent success stories in the financial services arena as Singapore, Dubai, the Cayman Islands, Dublin and Malta.
As reported, Spain is also developing a site north of Madrid, known as Operacion Chamartin, to be its answer to London’s Canary Wharf, while Saudi Arabia has revealed plans for what it calls King Abdullah Economic City near Jeddah on its western coast. KAEC is one of five "economic cities" planned by Saudi to provide jobs and a future for its young people.
Trinidad and Tobago also had plans for an international finance centre in the capital city, Port of Spain. But at the end of July, finance minister Winston Dookeran said it would not be built after all, and that it was “an idea that never should have been born”, according to a story on the website of the Trinidad Express newspaper.
