Tunisia’s food trade balance recorded a decline in the rate of coverage of imports by exports to 51% in the first four months of the year against 76.8 % in the same period last year.
This decrease is mainly due to the 34% fall in exports due to the decline in olive oil harvest during the last season.
Indeed, excluding revenues from exports of olive oil, the value of exports fell by only 6 %. Imports on the other hand recorded a slight decline of 0.6 %.
Therefore, the food trade balance recorded a deficit of 616 million dinars against 293.9 MD during the first four months of 2013.
Exports of food products went down 14 % during the first four months of 2014, compared with the same period of 2013, following the decline in revenue of olive oil 74 % (by value ) from 400 MTD to 104.2 MTD and 76% (by volume), from 78,300 tonnes to 19,100 tonnes.
The value of food imports reached 1,256.9 MTD during the first four months of 2014, recording a stagnation compared to last year.
However, some products grew in value terms such as durum wheat (26 %), sugar (56 %), olive oil (7 %), meat (7.5 MTD against 2.3 MTD), following the increase in the quantities imported.
