20.02.2012, Jeddah, KSA –The Tunisian Prime Minister, Mr. Hamadi Al Jebali, accompanied by a large high-ranking delegation comprising Minister of Investment and International Cooperation (Tunisia’s IDB Governor) and the Minister for Religious Affairs visited the Islamic Development Bank headquarters.
During the visit, the Tunisian Premier met with Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President, IDB Group, and the Bank’s senior management and underlined his country’s will to upgrade development cooperation with the IDB Group particularly in Islamic banking, public housing and supporting small enterprises. The IDB Group President expressed satisfaction over the level of cooperation between Tunisia and the IDB Group. Tunisia is a founding member country of the IDB with a fruitful history of cooperation and
to this date the IDB Group has contributed US$ 3 billion to it in terms of financing trade, intra-trade, infrastructural projects and investment and export insurance.
Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali then conveyed IDB Group’s readiness to cooperate with the Tunisian government in supporting its economic and development programs particularly in Islamic banking, public housing projects, and small projects financing aimed at Tunisian youth employment. He further stated that IDB is ready to promote economic cooperation and development amongst the countries of the Arab Maghreb Union calling on the private sector in those countries to activate further cooperation amongst
themselves.
The IDB Group President mentioned that a mission from the Bank will soon visit Tunisia to work out an extensive program embracing the bilateral cooperation priorities for the next five years. In the same framework, he will also visit the country by the end of February to closely investigate ways for promoting the existing cooperation and partnership with Tunisia and to take part in the forum on Islamic Finance in the Tunisian capital. He appreciated the Tunisian government for paying special
attention to Islamic banking reiterating that after the global financial crisis, the world (the UK and France in particular) is turning towards the principles of Islamic finance and banking.
During their visit to the IDB headquarters, the Tunisian Prime Minister and his accompanying delegation attended a presentation on IDB Group’s operations and outstanding achievements in Member Countries and Muslim Communities in non-member countries in addition to the Bank’s development contributions in Tunisia.