(TAP) - The administrative procedures relating to the resale of foreigners' property to their Tunisian occupants, at prices taking into account the social and financial situation as well as the age of the latter will be reduced, announced Prime Minister Youssef Chahed Monday in Tunis.

The objective is to help them repair these assets and settle their legal situation in order to integrate them into the economic circuit, he added, at a seminar held on the theme "State property in the service of development and employment", at the initiative of the Ministry of State Properties and Land Affairs with the assistance of the Department of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries.

He reported that the number of foreigners' properties (commercial and residential) managed by the Société Nationale Immobilière de Tunisie (SNIT), is 7,645 properties.

Chahed also announced the launch of the national higher education graduates programme by consecrating more than 10,000 hectares of state-owned agricultural land in the form of housing estates to be exploited by unemployed higher education graduates and others to enable them to become project managers instead of job seekers.

This project will be launched first in Kairouan with the announcement of a first tranche of agricultural allotments covering an area of 1,350 hectares, including 930 hectares for the unemployed with higher education diplomas and 420 hectares for other young unemployed people. The provisional list of candidates will be published on February 15, and the list of subdivisions devoted to this programme for the rest of the governorates will be published on March 15, 2019, he said