Economic expert Ezz Al Din Saeedan revealed that the brokers use Clothing and footwear stores to hide their illegal activities, including currency trading which witnessed notable increase during the recent years in the Tunisian cities. He said that the major reason behind this phenomenon is the aggravation of the parallel economy which represents over 53 percent of the Tunisian economy and unprecedented recovery of smuggling operations.
He added, in an interview with “Arabs Today”, that it is not possible to talk about a parallel exchange market away from a parallel commodities market increasingly existed in all over the country. He blamed the increasing smuggling of commodities for the recovery of their parallel market during the current period in the country.
He added that the only way to control the parallel exchange market, or the so-called currency black market, is to control the parallel economy as whole to represent only 10 to 15 percent of the Tunisian economy. He stressed the need for controlling the exchange rate of Tunisian dinar as soon as possible warning of the repercussions of the current situation on the lives of people.
He added that the Tunisian authorities should perform a role to control the border areas between Tunisia and Libya, saying that these areas are considered one of the major areas used to smuggle the commodities and exchange the currency. He stressed that the Tunisian government should realize the danger of such activities on the Tunisian economy.