Coherently with AEWEN’s goals, two sessions were organised to provide information on the Tunisian market. The first appointment in January, gave EU companies an overview of the country and its water and energy sectors. The other one in February was focused on technology demand and offer to facilitate matchmaking among participants. The AEWEN consortium could count on its local partners (CERTE, Ecopark Borj-Cédria, Tunicreee, Tunisian Technoparks Association) for the organisation and their participation in the events.

WATER & ENERGY OPPORTUNITIES IN TUNISIA
On 25th January, 8 Tunisian speakers presented the opportunities in Tunisia. The webinar was followed by over 40 people coming from 9 different countries.
The first part was introductory and gave an overview on the green transition in Tunisia. In particular, Zied Lahbib from FIPA Tunisia (Foreign Investment Promotion Agency) deepened the knowledge on the assets, business opportunities and reasons to invest in Tunisia for the European companies. Then Narjès Abdennebi, Amina Lamouchi (both from Ecopark) and Ramzi Zammali (Tunisian Technoparks Association) presented the Ecopark and the Tunisian Technoparks, with a particular focus on the opportunities in creating partnerships for European projects and programmes.
To give an idea of the energy sector, Raja Fradi from ANME (Agence Nationale pour la Maîtrise de l’Énergie) presented the main policies and activities for the energy management. She also gave an overview of the main indicators for the energy sector and talked about some projects and programmes for the international cooperation. Sami Marrouki (from Tunicreee) presented the institutional, legal and financial framework and the national energy policy in Tunisia.
During the last part, dedicated to the water sector, Khaled Zaabar from SONEDE (Société Nationale d’Exploitation et de Distribution des Eaux) and Khaoula Masmoudi from CERTE (Centre des Recherches et des Technologies des Eaux) deepened the following topics: energy transition for a sustainable drinking water service and the main actors, challenges, opportunities as well as legal framework in the Tunisian water sector.

WATER & ENERGY TECHNOLOGY DEMAND AND OFFER
The second webinar was held on 15th February. It focused on the technology demand and offer concerning the water and energy sectors in Tunisia. The aim of this event was to investigate the Tunisian companies and market’s expectations to try meeting their needs. For this reason, the webinar was followed by a B2B session.
The three speakers covered the following topics: Narjès Abdennebi (Ecopark) presented some water technologies, especially for the irrigation sector, Sami Marrouki (Tunicreee) talked about the priorities and the demand for technologies in the energy sector, while Zakarya Ahmed (CRTEn) explained how research is done in his organisation: the Research and Technology centre for Energy.
After having gained knowledge on the country and the market, companies were invited to present themselves and participate in online B2Bs. All the activities organised were useful in preparation for the mission to Tunisia, especially as they gave the opportunity to the companies both from Europe and from Tunisia to start meeting each other.

You could not attend the webinars? The videos are available on AEWEN’s YouTube channel