Although both Tunisia and Morocco have free trade deals with the European Union and Algeria’s economic and political ties with Britain have reached an unprecedented high, there is a growing feeling in all three Maghreb countries that rapid growth will be spurred from the southeast — the Gulf — rather than from the North. Even before oil prices rocketed to $100 a barrel, Gulf investors had begun to move into North Africa in a big way, eyeing especially tourism and real estate opportunities in Tunisia and Morocco, while banking interests kept a close watch on the possibilities afforded by future privatization of the monolithic Algerian state banking sector. Gulf money is, ironically, being starved of investment opportunities at home while in Europe much of the focus previously directed towards the Maghreb is shifting to the newer and poorer members of the EU in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet the influx
