During the course of my visit to Tunis whilst undertaking a
corporate actions benchmarking project, I became engrossed with the effort by the Tunisian government to create a significant new financial centre, bridging the gap between the Far East and the West. The investment in the region is clearly growing and the
moderate nature of the government in Tunis is clearly having a profound impact on its people.
I have not seen such enthusiasm and desire to learn about global finance for many years. The quality of young people being developed in Tunis is simply amazing. They are an engaging and hospitable people but that is just the veneer, as they have demonstrated
an extremely high degree of intellectual capacity and strength of character, which is being applied to commerce and technology developments.
As the enthusiasm for Islamic Banking increases the development of Tunis will be an important factor for Western Banks
Already Tunis is attracting outsourcing projects for systems development. They are also building an impressive financial market for the region that could attract foreign listings. Tunis has the potential to be as good as Dubai but a whole lot closer.