The food trade balance recorded a deficit of 1,344.5 MD in October 2019, against 375.8 MD in the same period of the previous year, due to rising prices of imported grain and lower olive oil exports, the National Observatory of Agriculture (ONAGRI) said in its monthly bulletin.
The coverage rate for this month is 71.9%, compared to 91.4% in October 2018.
Food exports fell by 14.3% while imports increased by 9%.
According to the ONAGRI, this deficit represents only 8.1% of that of the overall trade balance, which stood at 16,506.5 MD in October 2019.
Until the end of October 2019, Tunisia exported nearly 132 thousand tons of olive oil with revenue of 1,114 MD, 18 thousand tons of fishery products worth 380 MD, 87 thousand tons of dates worth 598 MD and 18 thousand tons of tomatoes worth 90.6MD.
Export prices for olive oil fell by 11.5% compared to the previous year.
On the other hand, tomatoes and dates’ increased by 46.5% and 18.7% respectively.
Tunisia imported nearly 514 thousand tons of durum wheat (442 MD), 462 thousand tons of barley (442 MD), 462 thousand tons of wheat (442 MD) and 462 thousand tons of barley (322 MD), 1,081 thousand tons of soft wheat (734 MD), and 441 thousand tons of sugar (419 MD) until the end of October 2019.
Import prices for grain increased (21.8% for soft wheat, 21.2% for barley and 13.8% for durum wheat).
The same is true for the price of potatoes (+41.7%), the price of sugar (+13%) and the price of milk and dairy products (+10.1%), while the prices of vegetable oils and meat grew slightly by 0.6% and 0.2% respectively.
