The interim government will seek to ensure that there is as little disruption to business as possible. The challenge will be to ensure that economic growth is high enough to meet the demands of protesters for more jobs and higher standards of living, which will only be achieved through the market-oriented policies initiated by the old regime. However, the government will have to work hard to restore confidence in these policies by ensuring that growth is more evenly distributed. In light of the disruption to the economy, growth targets will need to be revised. Nevertheless, the government will press ahead with its development plan, increasing the emphasis on reducing unemployment, particularly among graduates. In the interim period, it will increase economic benefits and subsidies on basic food items to lessen the financial burden on the unemployed. Tourism and foreign direct investment (FDI) will remain the main areas of economic policy.

Mr Ben Ali's family, especially members of the Trabelsi family of his second wife, Leila, and his son-in-law, Mohammed Sakher el-Materi, had become increasingly rapacious, taking commanding stakes in virtually every business sector. The new government will face some tricky political and legal choices as it grapples with this commercial and financial legacy. In some cases this could entail nationalising stakes held by members of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans, and offering them to the public or to strategic investors at a later date; in others it may involve revoking contracts or licences and retendering the relevant projects.