Construction of US $50 bn Tunisia Economic City proposed
 

It will be an economic development mega-project : It will have Economic and trade zones, University City, Medical City, etc Please read more on this here for details:

http://constructionreviewonline.com/...ity.jpg?c8fc67

I didn't know Tunisia had that much cash ever, let alone to pay for a project.

^ I'm surprised at the size of this thing too, cause to my knowledge and unlike Algeria, Tunisia has no significant natural gas or oil resources. Well, they may have a bit of oil, but no striking amount of it. Their tourism industry has been fairly developed, however, kinda like that of Morocco. Some of the money might just come from foreign interests. It sounds aggressive enough and pretty exciting to me, as it will widely serve southern Europe's interests as well, specially France's since we've got some historic relations to them, and a significant Tunisian community over here.

The main developer is a Tunisian businessman who made a fortune in Saudi Arabia. His name is Riadh Khalifa Toukabri. He's definitely close to some Saudi establishment, but I think it's important to have a Tunisian to mainly manage this thing. Over 50 multinationals involved so far, from some 30 countries. So this whole thing is to be giant like an entire brand new worldclass city. Some sort of Mediterranean Dubai, if you will.

More in French.

http://www.kapitalis.com/economie/24...e-dollars.html

http://www.kapitalis.com/images/stor...nomic-City.jpg

http://www.kapitalis.com/images/stor...mic-City-2.jpg

They're planning some 2000 ft tall twins as a signal to the world. :D

It's a great project worth paying for;

It'd make more sense to incorporate this into already important centers of industry and commerce such as Tunis, Sfax or Sousse? Such segregated cities with specific economic zones and not much else typically are not that pleasant of places

It's located in the Sousse governorate, 45km (~30 miles) north of Sousse and some 100km (~60 miles) south of Tunis, connected to both cities by the railway between them and nearby the Enfidha international airport.

I went through some Tunisian threads just yesterday. Some are quite skeptical and don't think it's feasible. Others are pointing out that engineering studies are well ongoing yet, thus that some investors are already spending money in the project.

There would've been a 1st attempt of a similar scale elsewhere in the country in a recent past that failed. They're trying again, apparently determined.

But obviously, an economic city that seeks to bring everyone on board...and boost country's research, academics and business, would be worthwhile - an additional is not bad!

They are trying I agree - more on the whole plan is revealed in the Tunisia Economic City website - http://www.tunisiaec.com/ as above