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The market in 2011 has been very much defined by the events of January 2011 which culminated in the ousting of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.According to one local partner: "Activity in 2010 was a bit less than in 2009 because the system in place was no longer viable, you couldn't do anything without the [president's] family being involved....

The market in 2011 has been very much defined by the events of January 2011 which culminated in the ousting of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

According to one local partner: "Activity in 2010 was a bit less than in 2009 because the system in place was no longer viable, you couldn't do anything without the [president's] family being involved." Many of the country's mega projects, among them the $3 billion Tunis Telecom City and the Gulf Finance House backed Financial Harbour in Tunis bay among them, have been suspended.

Many large project financings and privatisations have also been suspended and hope is that they will be able to resume after the elections planned for late October 2011.

"We are now in a position of 10 years before the revolution in terms of economic indicators, a negative progression, mainly because there have been no tourists and 40% of income comes from tourism, and Algerian and Libyan tourists are not coming," says the partner.

However, other parts of the economy in 2010 were doing very well, especially private sector M&A and independent power project financings. "2010 was a very good year for foreign investments in Tunisia, the Germans came back, they were very big investors in the seventies and now they are back investing in factories for spare parts for cars," says one lawyer, adding that "there have been three big investments in the last two years creating 3000 new jobs and for the first time the technology sector is bigger than textiles".

According to another lawyer: "There was a lot of money last year in the country and banks were lending to foreign companies when usually they do not support foreign investments" while another says that "exports are fine, they increased by 14%, and telecoms has been busy".

Since the upheaval the market has been difficult and firms report that "everyone is waiting for the elections of October". The most affected has been tourism, which some lawyers estimate at being at least 50% what it should be. On the other hand there has been a huge influx of people from all nationalities from Libya, with firms estimating over 200,000 relocations into the country putting a strain on resources.

"Since March 2011 the government confiscated all assets and properties of the former president's family, we had difficult time between January and mid-March, the revolution opened the mouth, they stopped and demonstrated and there were a lot of strikes and people asking for rights and increase of salary". Banks "don't have the money and they are very tight, especially on local currency," says another.

There is a mix of views about the future, with some lawyers being optimistic that in the new Libya the legal profession will be in a much important position in the economy with greater transparency and democracy. One firm sees potential in the new finance minister: "He has a big finance background so he is trying to promote the financial sector, restructuring the banking sector, strengthening the stock exchange and promoting the private sector". Others are more pessimistic: "Number one is kicked out, but number two and number three are still there."