Tunisian government widthdraws costly extra budget bill

Tunisia's government said on Monday it had withdrawn the supplementary budget bill for 2020 that would have entailed the biggest deficit in decades, after both parliament and the central bank demanded it cut its spending plans.

Parliament's finance committee last week rejected the bill which had planned to widen the fiscal defcit to 14% of GDP, and increase expenditures by about $4 billion, largely to alleviate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.