Vision 3, a consortium of Gulf Finance House, Ithmaar Bank and Abu Dhabi Investment House, launched on Tuesday the $3 billion Tunis Telecom City (TTC) project. TTC will be a telecom city in Tunis designed to integrate in one location the infrastructural, research and development, educational and support services that will allow telecom and IT sector entities to flourish. The new project has revived the hopes of many Tunisians, especially university graduates, of finding employment. The construction of TTC, according to Issam Youssef Janahi, executive chairman of the Gulf Finance House, will create 26,000 jobs. “The Tunis Telecom City will be one of the main cities in the North Africa region,” stated Janahi at a press conference following his meeting with President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunis was selected “based on the availability of the suitable factors for investments, as indicated in the testimony of the Davos World Economic Forum in its report of 2007, which put Tunisia in the forefront of countries where the modern technologies are available”, he added. “There are 8,000 graduates every year who are specialized in this field. All these factors are considered positive for entering into such an industry and for attracting investments to the communication technology sector.” “I think that the project will dissuade me from planning to immigrate to a European country,” said Imed Ben Mrad, who has a university degree in programming. “It has given me hope that my three years of unemployment since I graduated will end.” Haythem Belaid, who holds a high degree in e-commerce, is also hopeful he will find a suitable position at TTC. Chief Editor of Al Khabeer, Zmorda Dalhoumi, said the fact that many investors, especially from other Arab and Gulf countries, were interested in investing in Tunisia “was the result of the huge efforts and the distinguished standing that our country has won.”
