TUNIS, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia and Saudi Arabia signed eight cooperation agreements in economic and commercial fields on the sidelines of the 9th Tunisian-Saudi Joint Commission held here on Friday.
The eight bilateral agreements included a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in export valued at 200 million U.S. dollars.
The two parties also signed a MoU on a joint work plan between the High Authority for Investment in the Saudi Arabia and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA) of Tunisia.
Besides, the two governments signed a cooperation agreement on a grant from Saudi Arabia to build a university hospital named as "King Salman Ben Abdelaziz Hospital" with a cost of 85 millions dollars, which will be built in Kairouan, a province located in the center of Tunisia.
"The new investment code, adopted recently in Tunisia, favors the interests of local and foreign investment equally, especially as this code will give a wider field of maneuver to the public-private partnership," said Fadhel Abdelkafi, the Tunisian Minister of Development, Investment and International cooperation.
The Saudi Minister of Trade and Investment Mohamed Al-Kasbi assured that his visit to Tunisia leading a delegation representing 18 high-level governmental organizations as well as a significant number of economic actors "reflects the dynamics of cooperation between the two parties particularly in the economic and trade fields."
During his two-day visit, the Saudi high-level delegation accompanied by 53 businessmen attended also the Tunisian-Saudi Economic Forum, which has been suspended for several years before resuming this year with the 9th joint commission between the two countries.
