Manufacturing exports have increased by around 0.27% between 2015 and 2016 (January-February), from 4,050 million Tunisian dinars (MTD) to 4,061 MTD, according to latest statistics from the Ministry of Industry.
In an environment marked by a drastic decline in exports of olive oil (460 MTD in 2015 to 176 MTD in 2016), this positive result is mainly due to the rise in exports of non-food manufacturing industries by 8.6% in the first two months of the current year, thanks to increasing chemical products exports (+ 50%) and those of various industries (+ 25.7%).
Exports of mechanical and electrical industries were up 5.7%, those of the leather and footwear grew 4.8% while those of building materials, ceramics and glass industries rose 4.1%.
The decrease in exports of textiles and clothing that had recorded a significant drop last year was limited to – 0.7% to late February.
The same statistics reveal that many basic industrial products saw their exports
Increase significantly, as the super-triphosphate (+ 197%), ammonium hydrogen phosphate (10%), transformers (+ 24%), electrical cables (12.2%), leather products (+ 23.4%), pharmaceuticals (+ 25%) and plastic products (+ 8.1%).
Exports of manufacturing industries reached 24.5 billion dinars in 2015, posting an increase of 3.7% compared to 2014.
This growth is attributable to record exports of olive oil during last season that reached 2 billion dinars, including packaged olive oil which rose 21% in 2015.
Other industrial products like cement, pharmaceuticals and spare parts had climbed 17%, 14.1% and 6.2%, respectively.
