Manama: Tunisia has exempted all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) citizens from applying for visas when they visit the North African country, its president has said.
In an interview with Kuwait Television and Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) at the end of an official visit to Kuwait, Moncef Marzouki said that he had informed the Emir about the decision.
However, the Tunisian leader did not specify a date for the application of the exemption.
Tunisia's prime minister had also talked in the Red Sea resort of Jeddah about dropping the visa requirement to encourage GCC citizens to visit and invest in Tunisia as part of a scheme to ensure the reinvigoration of the economy hit by months of international concerns about the orientation of the state following the change of the regime in January 2011 and the ensuing strikes and sit-ins sparked by calls to improve living conditions.
Marzouki was in Qatar before flying to Kuwait for talks with the Emir.
The Tunisian leader, a longtime opposition figure to the ousted regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali said that Tunisia was "ready to remove all barriers that could face Kuwaiti entrepreneurs and to help them launch business ventures in various sectors."
"We encourage everybody to invest in various sectors in our country, namely in tourism, energy, sea water desalination, infrastructure and roads," Marzouki was quoted as saying. "Now, we have more than 40 great projects designed to place Tunisia among modern states and some of these ventures will be proposed to the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development," he said.
