Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia, Marouane El Abassi, on Friday, proposed the launch of a reflection with stakeholders to build a satellite account for cultural and creative industries.
In his opening remarks at the Forum “Entrepreneurship in the Creative Economy – Ba’Der”, in the presence of Minister of Cultural Affairs Hayet Ketat Guermazi, and Minister of Economy and Planning, Samir Saied, El Abassi considered that the cultural and creative economy, which represents an important lever of growth, has been severely tested by the effects of the health crisis, with serious threats on the future of cultural and artistic activities, especially since it already suffers from serious structural problems.
“It is necessary to mobilise all efforts to revive the sector through actions aimed at strengthening cultural governance and creation while developing an ecosystem conducive to its dynamism and influence on the regional and international space,” he stressed to this effect.
He said “the banking sector could be an active and impactful actor in the culture and creativity sector, notably by providing project holders with appropriate financing solutions adapted to their needs, especially following the negative repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial situation of creators and all cultural actors”.
Financing offer for creative industries
Banks would therefore gain by imagining financing offers that take into account the specificity of the sector’s creative and cultural industries. The Governor of the BCT urged “initiating studies on this sector with the aim of better understanding it and identifying the most promising cultural industries as well as the means to be implemented to activate their potential”.
To remedy the lack of reliable data and specific indicators for the evaluation of the cultural and creative economy, El Abassi proposed the “launch of a reflection with stakeholders including the supervisory authority and the INS in order to build a satellite account for this sector, to shed more light on the true dimension of this activity following the example of what has been done for the tourism sector.
This would allow a better evaluation of the profitability of the creative economy in Tunisia by private investors.
