Source: Enquête sur la compétitivité, IEQ 2007.
37. Financing provided by SICARs play a minor role, irrespective of sector. The relatively limited use of bank financing by Tunisian SMEs reflects to some extent the negative perceptions mentioned previously. It is also worth noting that the share of bank credit in SMEs’ asset financing appears to be positively correlated with the age of the company. Companies aged 10 years or more report a greater share of bank credit in their asset financing (24 percent) than newly-created firms (16 percent). Similarly, the share of SICARs remains minimal even in the category of young companies that are less than five years old.