Tunisia is the North African country Internet and e-commerce infrastructure of which we are to consider today. Bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east, Tunisia represents the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. Importantly, this African country has close relations with both the European Union and the Arab world, being also a member of the Arab League and the African union.

The economy of the country is an export-oriented in the process of liberalizing, while politically the country represents dictatorship. Tunisia has developed a diverse, market-oriented economy and is expected to see only a mild drop of GDP growth last year as a result of the global economic crisis, that pushed annual growth to return to pre-crisis levels of around 5 to 6%.Tunisia is currently ranked the most competitive economy in Africa and the 40th in the world by the World Economic Forum. Tunisia has also managed to attract many international companies such as Airbus and Hewlett-Packard.

Turning to the ICT sector, it’s important to note, Tunisia has one of the most developed telecommunications market in North Africa. Moreover, Tunisia can boast about one of the lowest broadband prices in Africa. That was resulted by heavy investments in the telecom sector since the mid-1990s.

The Tunisian Ministry of Communications established in 1996 the Tunisian Internet Agency (or Agence tunisienne d'Internet -ATI) in order to regulate the country’s Internet and domain name system (DNS) services, which had formerly fallen under the Regional Institute for Computer Sciences and Telecommunications (IRSIT)’s purview. AIT is also represents the current principal national ISP. 

The national incumbent telecom provider is Tunisie Telecom (TT), that’s offering a full range of the fixed-line services. In 2006 the operator was partly privatized: 35% stake was sold to Dubai-based Tecom and DIG.

France Telecom-owned Orange operator Divona was licensed as the country’s second fixed-line and third mobile operator in the middle of 2009 in a consortium with local satellite and wireless broadband operator. This license includes 3G mobile services, which the national operators have so far only operated on a trial basis. The operator is expected to deliver a further boost to the Internet and broadband market which is already one of the most developed in the region.

The other Tunisian eleven Internet operators lease their bandwidth services having gateway from ATI. Six of them are public:

• ATI
• INBMI
• CCK
• CIMSP
• IRESA
• Defense's ISP

Other five operators delivering their service to Tunisians are:

• Planet Tunisie
• 3S Global Net
• HEXABYTE
• TopNet
• TUNET

It’s also important to note, that just competition between these 11 ISPs, supported by a nationwide fibre optic backbone network and international access via submarine and terrestrial fibre has led to some of the lowest broadband prices in Africa.

Moreover, the government is encouraging and promoting Internet technologies deployment. However, strong Internet censorship exists in the country as the national government is still keeping tight control by restricting access to certain websites. Besides a number of laws supporting e-commerce and digital signatures have been passed, which has led to one of the most active e-government and e-commerce sectors in Africa and Tunisia particularly.

As for the Internet penetration, its level has already reached almost 35%, with 3.6 mn Tunisians connected. This may be compared to miserly 1% seen in 2000, according to www.internetworldstats.com. Thus far the growth in broadband usage has made up enormous 3,500% for the decade.

It’s important to note, that about 85% of Internet subscribers in the country get access to the Web at home, while over 75% use Internet at work, and about 24% use public Internet cafés to get Internet access.

Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tunisia is .tn, administered, as it was already noted, by ATI.

Registrations are made directly at the second level, or at the third level beneath the following names:

• .com.tn
• .ens.tn
• .fin.tn
• .gov.tn
• .ind.tn
• .intl.tn
• .nat.tn
• .net.tn
• .org.tn
• .info.tn
• .perso.tn
• .tourism.tn
• .edunet.tn
• .rnrt.tn
• .rns.tn
• .rnu.tn
• .mincom.tn
• .agrinet.tn
• .defense.tn

Well, e-commerce sector, how has it managed to develop in this North African state?

Eventually, rapid surge in Internet usage in the country has stipulated growth in e-commerce sector, with growing amount of Tunisians attracted by e-business.

In 1997 a National Commission for Electronic Commerce (CNCE) was set up. The commission is responsible for implementing the strategy and developing e-commerce infrastructure in Tunisia. This plan, which aims to kick-start a new national economy, based on new technologies, is supported by an appropriate legal, business, financial and tax system.

This move, among others, reflects the Tunisian Government successful attempts to pay a lot of attention to national e-commerce sector development. This also shows that Tunisians government recognizes the necessity of this market development as a driving force for economic growth. That’s why it supports the e-business rolling out by expanding markets, increasing efficiency and maximizing wealth.

Turning to some official data, we can note that over 36% of Internet users in Tunisia apply to e-commerce. It was also estimated, by Arab Advisors Group that, for instance, during 2008 spent over $132 million in e-commerce transactions, with 416000 e-commerce users.

Moreover, tourism in Tunisia, being one of the key industries of the national economy, has also been driving the deployment of e-commerce market by integrating online platforms into its business activity.

Aware of the importance of new information and communication technologies for the tourism sector and the challenges which this sector faces, especially international competition and the trends in the generating markets in this information age, the country’s government launched a national tourism consultation involving the various actors, both public and private, working in the country’s tourism industry. The main aim of the consultation was to reach a consensus on the choices concerning policies and development strategies for the sector. The consultation also aimed to define the concerns of the relevant professionals, to encourage actors in the industry to take part in the process of designing strategies, and to strengthen public-private partnership by concluding contractual agreements, alliances and cooperation agreements.

In 2004, the Tunisian National Tourism Office (ONTT) organized a seminar on ‘Tourism and New Information and Communication Technologies, that appeared to be a part of the national consultation on tourism development strategy launched by the government and aimed in effect to take a more thorough look at the sector’s future, namely constructing e-commerce web sites for marketing Tunisian tourism products, and this due to the implications for the sector of new information technology and the new trends in tourist behavior, (particularly, increasing Internet use).

Well, it’s obvious, that ICT and e-commerce infrastructure in this North American country has been on a relatively high stage of deployment, compared to the majority of other countries of the continent. This is reflected by variety of Internet and related services increasingly launched, by growing volume of Internet and e-commerce users, by a number of government initiatives implemented on the ICT and e-business field, etc. That’s why the country proved itself to be one of the African ICT and e-commerce leaders. Moreover, Tunisia still shows perfect signs of further successful development. And of course, the national government is playing one of the most active roles by expanding markets, increasing efficiency and maximizing wealth.