Marouane El Abassi, Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) was elected, Saturday, October 19, 2019 in Washington, "best Central Bank Governor in 2019 for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region". This prize was awarded to him by the specialized magazine "Global Markets" during a ceremony organized on the sidelines of the annual assemblies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (WB/IMF). On the occasion of this ceremony, El Abassi declared that “my first year as Governor of the Central Bank was rich in lessons. Despite the complexity of the country's economic and financial situation, the BCT had to, through its prerogatives, take painful but necessary decisions to contain inflation”. And the 3rd Governor after the revolution added that “a few months after my appointment as Governor, we drew up the first Strategic Plan of the BCT, which reflected the vision agreed with the Staff, namely to be a Bank Modern, proactive and efficient power station at the forefront of economic and financial transformations”. According to the elected by his peers, “the BCT has also endeavored to consolidate its joint work with the Government, making it possible to improve the economic indicators. Thus, foreign exchange reserves have increased to now cover more than 100 days of imports, and the monetary policy conducted in recent months has made it possible to reverse inflation downwards and stabilize the dinar”. And El Abassi to explain again what could explain this award for the best Mena banker, drawing attention to the fact that "financial inclusion has also been an important project since 2018, for which the BCT has doubled its efforts with a view to making concrete progress through, in particular, payment digitization projects and the development of payment systems and means that comply with the most advanced international standards. On another level, the BCT has started thinking about the facilitations and benefits for Tunisians abroad. These include, in particular, the relaxation of foreign exchange regulations and support for start-ups”. El Abassi then returns to the case of Tunisia's exit from the Gafi blacklist, a case in which the BCT also had its say. “Very recently, as a reward for our efforts, Tunisia has just left the FATF gray list. Indeed, under the impetus of the CTAF with the support of the BCT and the Government, thanks to concerted work with all the stakeholders, Tunisia was able in the space of 17 months to carry out a very laborious and significantly improve its system for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism". El Abassi closed his statement by recalling that "Tunisia is evolving in an international environment characterized by the exacerbation of risks and uncertainty, linked to trade tensions, climate change and regional conflicts, in the face of very high expectations from populations. These are the future challenges for our country, of which the Central Bank of Tunisia is fully aware, and against which it will work to mitigate these risks and ensure that the Tunisian economy continues to be resilient. »