Tunisia’s export volume grew 7.3% in August compared to July, the National Institute of Statistics (French: INS) said in its monthly newsletter published Thursday. Meanwhile, a near-stagnation in the volume of imports was reported (+ 0. 2%).
This monthly increase in exported quantities helped improve the coverage rate by 5.2 percentage points to reach 79.7%. Export prices rose 1.4%, while those of imports edged up 3.4%.
The stagnation in the volume of imports in August is the result of an increase in energy purchases (+ 101.6%) and a contraction in the volume of food imports (- 44.7%).
The volume of exports, excluding energy, increased 10.1%, while that of imports posted a 8.7% drop.
Similarly, prices – excluding energy – rose 1.4% and 4.4 % in export and import, respectively, bringing about weaker terms of trade exclusive of energy (- 2.9 points) to stand at 93%.
The rise seen in the volume of exports is driven by higher exports in mechanical and electrical engineering industries (+ 15.1%), textile, clothing and leather (+ 7.7%) and various manufacturing industries (+ 8.5%).
The volume of exports in energy and lubricants, the mining sector and agriculture and food processing industries fell 19.6%, 3.6% and 4.4%, respectively.
The volume of imports of consumer goods and capital equipment dropped 8.8% and 8.3% respectively. Yet, supply of raw materials and semi-finished products grew 3.6%.
