The European Investment Bank (EIB) announces a loan of EUR 30 million (1) for upgrading and construction of some 47 km of roads around Bizerte, north of Tunis.
The project financed consists of developing an improved road network around the lake of Bizerte, between the towns of Bizerte, Tinja and Menzel Bourguiba and the Tunis-Bizerte motorway, currently under construction. As a complement to the new motorway, it will provide part of the transport infrastructure necessary to take forward and rationalise the process of industrial and urban expansion in the region. The project will therefore contribute to the more balanced economic development of the north-eastern regions, the capital Tunis and surrounding areas.
Implementation of the works, which are included in the Ninth Tunisian Development Plan and scheduled for completion by the end of 2004, has been entrusted to the General Directorate for Roads and Bridges of the Ministry for Equipment and Housing.
The European Investment Bank, the European Union's financing institution, is a lead player in implementing the EU's "Euro-Mediterranean Partnership". In this context, a mandate has been handed down to the EIB for the period 2000-2007 to provide up to EUR 6 425 million of funding in the EU's twelve Mediterranean Partner Countries. The Framework Contract governing the EIB's operations in Tunisia under this mandate was signed in July 1997.
Since it began operations in Tunisia in 1978, the EIB has lent over EUR 1 billion in all here, including EUR 85 million in the form of risk capital drawn from EU budgetary resources, for financing various industrial, agricultural-processing, transport and environmental projects.
(1) EUR 1: FRF 6.55957, TND 1.25050, 0.638700 GBP.