Tunisia’s economic growth reached 2.6% during the whole year 2013, against 3.6% in 2012, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). Regarding the 4th quarter of 2013, preliminary results of the quarterly accounts posted by the Institute of Statistics on its website, show that GDP at constant prices grew 2.3 %, compared the same period of 2012, but declined 0.3% compared to the 3rd quarter of 2013.
This low level of growth is explained by the INS, according to the same indicators, by the growth regression of agriculture and fishing (-4.1%) during the fourth quarter of 2013, due a 4.1% decline in production and especially the reduction of grain harvest by 43% ( about 13 million quintals , against nearly 23 million quintals during the past two seasons 2011-2012) .
The growth rate of the sector for the whole year was negative (-4.1 %).
The downward trend also concerned non-manufacturing industries (-4.2%), due to the decline in production of the oil and natural gas extraction sector (-12.8 %).
In contrast, manufacturing activity grew by 3.1%, mainly due to the growth of the textile and clothing (+3.9%), mechanical and electrical industries (+1.2%) and chemical products (+13.9 %).
Similarly, the services sector has contributed to the growth, insofar as market services posted an increase of 4.4 % in the 4th quarter of 2013, and this because of the rise in the value added of the transport (+3.5% ) and telecommunications (+10 %) sectors.
The growth of non-market services was 5.3 %. For the full year, market services grew by 4.3 % and non-market went up 5.8%.
Tunisia’s Central Bank (BCT) had predicted “a growth rate between 2.6% and 3% for the year, with continuing pressures on financial stability, knowing that updated estimates of the Economic Budget for 2014 reported an expected growth rate of 3.8 %.”
