Tunisia’s trade balance deficit continued to improve at the end of February, falling by 24% to 1,784 million dinars, compared with 2,358 million dinars in the first two months of last year.
This improvement is due to exports rising at a faster rate than imports. As a result, the coverage rate rose by 4.6 points compared with the same period in 2023, to 85.6%.
The results of Tunisia’s foreign trade at current prices for the two months of 2024, published by the National Statistics Institute (INS), show that exports went up by 5.9% (compared with +11.6% in 2023) to reach 10,637 million dinars, compared with 10,044 million dinars at the end of February 2023.
Imports rose slightly by 0.2% (compared with +7.4% in 2023) to 12,421 million dinars, compared with 12,402 million dinars in the first two months of 2023.
The increase in exports (+5.9%) mainly concerns exports from the agri-food industries sector, which rose by 56.5% following the increase in our olive oil sales (1,324 million dinars, compared with 663.9 million), as well as exports from the mechanical and electrical industries sector, up by 4.3%.
On the other hand, exports from the energy sector fell by 4.5%, while those from mining, phosphates and derivatives fell by 26%, and those from textiles, clothing and leather by 7.1%.
The virtual stagnation in imports (+0.2%) was due to the combined effect of the rise in imports of energy products (+5%), capital goods (+11.6%) and consumer goods (+3.7%) and the fall in imports of raw materials and semi-finished products (-6.9%).
The trade balance deficit is mainly due to the deficit recorded with certain countries, such as China (-TND 1,211 million), Russia (TND -1,031 million), Algeria (TND -423.1 million), Turkey (TND -390.7 million), Greece (TND -339.3 million) and Ukraine (TND -222.4 million).
On the other hand, the balance of trade in goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (TND 966.6 million), Italy (TND 589.6 million), Germany (TND 386.1 million), Libya (TND 236.3 million) and Morocco (TND 82 million).
The INS notes that the balance of trade excluding energy showed a surplus of TND 38.5 million. As a result, the energy balance deficit stood at TND 1,822 million, compared with TND 1,693 million in the first two months of 2023.
