Tunisia’s foreign trade posted in volume a 19.2% drop in exports and 22.2% in imports (constant prices) during the first half (H1) of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, indicates the note on “Foreign trade at constant prices for June 2020,” released by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) on Thursday.
In terms of prices, the INS reports a decline of 1.7% for exports and 2.4% for imports.
In current values, Tunisia’s foreign trade reached, for the same period, 18,192.7 MD in exports and 24,795.6 MD in imports, down about 20.6% in exports and 24.1% in imports.
Excluding energy, prices fell by 0.6% in exports and increased by 1.4% in imports compared to H1 2019.
The fall in export volumes affected most sectors, mainly the textiles, clothing and leather sector (-26.7%) and the mechanical and electrical industries sector (-28.8%).
On the other hand, exports of the agriculture and food-processing sector and the energy and lubricants sector edged up in volume, by 21.2% and 16.5%, respectively.
As regards imports, the development in volume saw a fall in all sectors, particularly the mechanical and electrical industries (-28.3%) and the textile, clothing and leather sector (-27.0%).
Improvement in exports against a decline in imports at constant prices in June 2020
Exports grew by 2.7% and imports fell by 16.7% at constant prices in June 2020, compared with the same month last year.
Prices of traded products dropped by 3.9% in exports and by 9.2% in imports.
