Key characteristics of the country:

• Established network of technical support structures dedicated to specific industry sectors.
• Recently established network of incubators facing challenges due to a weak project pipeline.
  
• Recent introduction of courses on ‘innovation management’ as part of industrial engineering degrees. Some may have unrealistic ambitions and over-estimate the need for them to demonstrate success in terms of spin-off companies – pedagogical gaols may be more reasonable for now.
  
• Industry-academia links exist but must be developed both in kind and in intensity. Industry has started to express needs in terms of the socio-technical skills, third level are not well equipped to respond on these issues. The initiatives of pioneering academics in this regard need stronger institutional support. Such debate should be supported, generalised and amplified.
  
• The venture capital industry has started to mature. There is increasing specialisation and regionalisation. Available statistics on the sector require interpretation. Some funds have now completed their first company ‘exits’ but it is still too early to provide good estimates of the Return on Investment (RoI).
  
• There is a focus on development capital, a low level of financing for seed and early stage ventures and essentially no angel investment.
  
• VCs experience a weak prospect pipeline, high costs ‘educating’ company owners and unexpectedly high costs of supporting business services and occasional bought-in expertise. There is a growing need to provide support for the networking of VC professionals, occasions for mutual learning and a system for benchmarking performance of funds with a view to raising awareness among investors and entrepreneurs as well as developing the market for private equity in the region.
  

Key drivers:

• Good promotion of investment historically this has been especially strong in traditional sectors such as tourism.
  
• Tunisia has more recently enjoyed success in attracting high quality FDI such as hi-tech manufacturing and corporate RTD laboratories.
  
• This has not been limited to ICT but there have been some recent successes in areas such as vaccine production.
  
• The investment promotion agency is constantly improving its ability to communicate with and market to suitable investors.
  
• Nevertheless there is a recognised need to develop an image of Tunisia as a technology based economy, and move beyond its current image as a reasonably priced holiday destination.
  

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