Businessman Khayam Turki, a leading member of Tunisia's left-wing Ettakatol party, is to be the finance minister in the new coalition government, three coalition sources said on Wednesday.

Turki was educated in Tunisia and France, studied at business school and is 40 years of age, one of his friends told Reuters. He was financial director in Ettakatol's campaign for last month's election.

The election, for an assembly which will draft a new constitution, was won by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, which will govern in coalition with two junior partners, Ettakatol and the Congress for the Republic.

Tunisia became the birthplace of the "Arab Spring" uprisings in January when mass protests forced autocratic leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia.

The incoming government is under intense pressure to tackle unemployment, raise wages and revive economic growth, which slumped during the instability which followed the revolution.

Ettakatol has in the past espoused socialist policies, but Turki's friend, who is also an official with the party, said the new finance minister was an economic liberal.

"He is for economic openness and he is in favour of economic reforms to promote openness," said the friend.

An official in another coalition party said Turki had lived abroad for some of his life because his father was a diplomat.

The official said Turki is the nephew of Mustafa Ben Jaafar, the Ettakatol leader who is now speaker of the constitutional assembly.