• Novation Tech opens first Tunisia factory with €22 million investment

• Monastir plant to produce carbon fiber automotive components

• Move leverages Tunisia’s export-driven, skilled automotive sector

Novation Tech, an Italian manufacturer of carbon fiber composites, inaugurated its first factory in Tunisia on Wednesday, April 15.

Located on a 4,000-square-meter site at Monastir’s Neopark, a technology hub in the country’s central-east that hosts dozens of industrial and tech companies, the facility expands the company’s production capacity and international presence.

The plant, built with an investment of 22 million euros ($25.8 million), will produce composite components mainly for the automotive industry.

Italian Ambassador to Tunisia Alessandro Prunas attended the inauguration and highlighted the factors that make the North African country attractive to European manufacturers, citing its proximity to Europe and skilled workforce.

Novation Tech is a European leader in carbon fiber processing and composite component manufacturing for the automotive, aerospace, sports and eyewear sectors. In addition to Tunisia, the company operates plants in Italy, Hungary, Croatia and Portugal.

Tunisia’s automotive sector includes more than 250 companies, 67% of which are fully export-oriented. It employs over 100,000 people, including around 15,000 engineers, and generates export revenues exceeding 5 billion dinars ($1.73 billion).

The sector’s growth has been driven by partnerships with several European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, since the 1990s, as well as a range of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. These include a 10-year corporate tax exemption on profits, investment grants covering up to one-third of total project costs, including infrastructure, and state support for employer social security contributions on permanent staff wages.

Walid Kéfi