Proposals were submitted by the 15 April deadline from Bombardier Transportationof Canada, Alstomof France, Germany's Siemens Transportation Systems, Construcciones y Auxilliar Ferrocarriles (CAF)of Spain and Italy's Ansaldobreda. SMLT expects to spend several months evaluating the offers.

The capital's metro network consists of four lines with a total of 30 kilometres of track and carries around 200,000 passengers daily. In addition to increasing the number of vehicles operating on the system, SMLT is also considering plans to extend the network 7 kilometres south to the El-Morouj district.

Siemens acted as general contractor in the construction and development of the Tunis rail system in the early 1980s and worked on the network's expansion in the 1990s. The German company was also responsible for the provision of the rolling stock, traction power supply, control systems, signalling and safety equipment and personnel communication and passenger information systems. The metro contract also included installation of the central depot, incorporating tracks, maintenance shops and an operations control centre (MEED 10:11:95).