Programme de Mise à Niveau (PMN) — Tunisia's Three-Decade Industrial Upgrading Scheme

Launched in 1995/96 by Tunisia's Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy through the Bureau de Mise à Niveau and the Agence de Promotion de l'Industrie et de l'Innovation (APII), the Programme de Mise à Niveau (PMN) co-finances diagnostic audits, technology investment and management modernisation for industrial firms adapting to trade liberalisation.

Scale is well documented: roughly 7,000 upgrade applications have been filed, 86% of them from SMEs, backing more than 14 billion Tunisian dinars in approved investment through over 300 regional advisory committees. The programme marked its 30th anniversary in 2025, and its consultative committee approved a further tranche of over 180 million dinars in investment (22.6 million dinars in subsidies) across the agro-food, electrical, mechanical and textile/clothing sectors as recently as July 2026.

The French development agency AFD's 2005 comparative study of Tunisia, Morocco and Senegal's upgrading programmes found Tunisia's the most mature, with about 3,000 enterprises enrolled by then, while cautioning that the three countries' programmes were at too different stages for a rigorous comparison. Independent Tunisian competitiveness research has since described PMN's measured effects on productivity and quality-employment creation as mixed, pointing to targeting and implementation gaps even as participation and investment volumes kept growing — a genuine cautionary note alongside its longevity and reach.

Read the full analysis: https://www.pmn.nat.tn/cadre-du-pmn/cadre-general