Tunisia’s foreign trade saw a significant decline at constant prices by 12.7 in exports and 16.4% in imports in the first 11 months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, according to statistics from the National Institute of Statistics (INS) released Thursday.
In terms of prices, a decline of (-0.9%) for exports and (-4.1%) for imports was recorded while excluding energy, prices increased both export and import prices by 5% between 2019 and 2020.
During the first 11 months of 2020, the decrease in export volumes has affected most sectors, particularly the textiles, clothing and leather sector (-17.3%) and mechanical and electrical industries (-18.8%), the mining sector, phosphates and derivatives (-22.8%).
As for exports of the agriculture and food processing sector, they posted a 23% rise in volume against an increase of 7.6% for the energy and lubricants sector.
Regarding imports, the decline affected most sectors including mechanical and electrical industries (-22.5%), textiles, clothing and leather (17.4%), as well as the mining sector phosphates and derivatives (-25.9).
In November and at constant prices, the country’s trade saw a drop of 3.3 in imports and 0.6% in exports. On the price level, the decline was 5.7% and 0.2% respectively.
The deficit of the trade balance excluding energy decreased to -7.6 billion dinars and the deficit of the energy balance stood at -4 billion dinars (34.6% of the total deficit) against -7 billion dinars during the same period in 2019.
