Brussels, 06/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - The Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment in Partnership (FEMIP), the arm of the European Investment Bank (EIB) dedicated to the euro-Mediterranean area, published a study entitled “Tourism in the FEMIP Countries: Strategies, Policies and Proposals for Its Development at Sub-Regional Level”, on 6 March in Berlin.
The FEMIP study tackles the issue of tourism in the Mediterranean in its regional or sub-regional dimensions. It is also the first complete analysis of the whole chain of tourism, including 60 indicators, from national policies, tourist infrastructure and the existence of specialised training, to the number of tourists and their expenditure, via funding and environmental issues. It retraces the development of tourism in the region since 2001 and makes forecasts up to the year 2010, identifies the problems of each country and suggests ways of compensating for these by means of the strengths of others. Lastly, it presents case studies for five of the most advanced countries in the tourist sector, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco. It took two specialists in the FEMIP tourist sector and two consultants nine months to carry out the investigations required for the study, most of it on the ground.
The objective of FEMIP is to promote the development of nine Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Gaza/West Bank, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey) by means of loans or equity participation. Its two priorities are to support the private sector and to create an environment conducive to investment by means of decent infrastructure and well-adjusted banking systems. FEMIP has become the number one development partner of the Mediterranean countries, with more than 7.4 billion EUR invested since 2002, including 1.4 billion in 2007. (O.L.)