(Ecofin Agency) - Tunisia is preparing to issue a $500 million Eurobon guaranteed by the United States to plug part of its budget deficit and finance development projects, announced Tunisian minister of Finance, Slim Charker, on June 11.

“We are going on international markets to mobilise funds to finance the 2016 state budget and to implement various development projects across the country,” he told deputies. The minister added that the US guarantee would help get a favorable rate, not above 2%.

It will be the fifth time that Tunisia goes on the international debt market since Ben Ali’s fall in January 2011. It has previously issued a Samurai bond on the Japanese market and guaranteed by the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation, two other US-guaranteed bonds in 2014, and a non-guaranteed Eurobond from another country in January 2015.

More than five years after Ben Ali’s fall, Tunisia still struggles to restart its economy which is crippled by political troubles, unceasing social movements and terrorist attacks. In 2015, Tunisia’s economy recorded less than 1% in growth.