Zine El Abidine Ben Ali GDP more than tripled from $1,201 in 1986 to $3,786 in 2008. Although growth in 2002 slowed to a 15-year low of 1.9% due to drought and lackluster tourism, better conditions after 2003 helped push growth to about 5% of GDP. For about 20 years after 1987, the GDP annual growth averaged nearly 5%. A report published in July 2010 by the Boston Consulting Group ("The African Challengers: Global Competitors Emerge from the Overlooked Continent") listed Tunisia as one of the African "Lions" and indicated the eight such countries account for 70% of the continent's gross domestic product. Steady increases
Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli () is a Tunisian activist affiliated with the Islamist Ennahda Movement, for which he is an executive. Ziad el-Doulati obtained his doctorate degree in pharmacology from the University of Reims in France in 1984. While there he was also head of the Union of Muslim Students. He was arrested in 1981 for his affiliation with the Islamic Action Party, now the Ennahda Movement, then immediately released. In 1987 he was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but was released after only eleven months following the ascension of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to the presidency in