Tunisia Leader Replaces Central Bank Boss as IMF Deal Languishes

Tarek El-Tablawy and Souhail Karam
·1 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Tunisian President Kais Saied appointed a new central bank chief, replacing a governor with whom he’d disagreed over the urgency of an International Monetary Fund bailout.

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Fathi Zouhair Nouri, an economics professor, was sworn in to the top job on Thursday, the presidency said on its Facebook page without giving details. The six-year mandate of his predecessor, Marouane El Abassi, was set to expire this week, although regulations allowed Saied to renew his term once.

The North African nation has been mired in a grinding economic crisis, with gross domestic product contracting 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and questions swirling over how it’ll meet its external financing requirements. Talks with the IMF on finalizing a $1.9 billion loan agreed more than a year ago have stalled.

Saied and El Abassi had previously disagreed over the necessity of a deal, while the president and his backers have in the past year called for a reform of the central bank’s statutes.

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Earlier this month, Tunisian lawmakers approved a bill allowing the government to take the controversial step of borrowing from the central bank, paving the way for a 7 billion dinar ($2.2 billion) loan to help with the state’s foreign-debt servicing this year.

Nouri, 68, served as an economic adviser for Tunisian authorities before the country’s 2011 Arab Spring revolt. He was appointed in 2015 to the central bank’s financial markets commission.

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