“Digitization is first and foremost a wish and a mentality!” With these words, Mohamed Zrelli, CIO at LEONI Group Tunisia, expressed his hopes for the future at the Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable. The Roundtable was part of the virtual information trip that the EMA conducted between June 4 and 18, 2020 on the topic of “Strengthening the Competitiveness of the IT Sector in Tunisia”, during which it met with numerous decision-makers from companies, associations, government, diplomacy and civil society. The results will be presented to EMA partners and a broad interested audience in the webinar “Tunisia Post Covid-19: Invest in IT” on June 23.

Tunisia’s government is pursuing the national strategy Tunisie Digitale 2018/2020 with the aim of making the country an international player in the IT sector. It aims to create jobs (25,000 per year from 2020) through digitization, offshoring and national champions and to increase the competitiveness of the Tunisian economy as a whole. Two-thirds of the necessary investment is to come from private companies.

EMA and its partner association VOICE, which represents the interests of IT decision-makers (CIOs) in German companies, have recognized the great potential of digitization and digital transformation, which affects Germany and Tunisia equally. They have therefore launched this joint project in order to send out an impulse as to how the IT sector must position itself and what political framework conditions must be created to place digitization successfully and sustainably in companies and public administration.