The surplus in Tunisia’s food trade balance declined from 1,584.2 million dinars to 744.2 million dinars between 2024 and 2025 (as of the end of May), resulting in a drop in the coverage rate from 153.6% to 125.7%, according to a note on the “Food Trade Balance as of End-May 2025” published Tuesday by the National Observatory of Agriculture (ONAGRI).
This decline is mainly due to a decrease in exports of olive oil (-28.9%), dates (-16.0%), and seafood products (-23.6%), despite a drop in imports of grain (-14.9%), sugar (-56.1%), and vegetable oils (-18.7%).
In value terms, food exports recorded a decrease of 19.7%, while imports dropped by only 1.9%.
The average export price of olive oil fell to 12.81 dinars/kg, marking a 52.8% decrease compared to the previous year. Export prices dropped by 52.8% for olive oil and 1.4% for seafood products, while they increased by 2.1% for dates and 19.8% for citrus fruits compared to the same period last year.
As for grain import prices, they decreased by 18.8% for durum wheat and 1.2% for soft wheat, while increasing by 5.9% for barley and 8.0% for corn.
The price of sugar also fell by 29%, while vegetable oil prices rose by 19.5% and those of milk and dairy products increased by 14.1%.
It is worth noting that food imports accounted for 8.2% of total imports, while food exports represented 13.6% of total exports.
The surplus in the food trade balance helped reduce the overall trade deficit by 8.9%.
Tunisia’s overall trade deficit stood at -8,367.2 million dinars at the end of May 2025, reflecting a 30.5% increase.
