Tunisia’s trade deficit stood at 8.7 billion dinars at the end of the first half of the current year, compared with 11.7 billion dinars at the end of June 2022, narrowing by 26.2%.
To this end, the coverage rate increased by 7.6 points compared to last year, reaching 78.3%, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
Exports increased by 10% (compared to +24.6% in the same period in 2022) to 31.3 billion dinars, compared to 28.4 billion a year earlier.
Imports, on the other hand, dropped 0.6% (as against an increase of 32.4% in 2022) to 40 billion dinars, compared with 40.2 billion in the first half of 2022.
The trade balance is mainly due to the deficit recorded with certain countries such as China (4 billion dinars), Russia (2.9 billion), Algeria (2.1 billion), Turkey (1.5 billion), Ukraine (725.9 million dinars), Egypt (502.2 million) and Greece (-344.2 million).
On the other hand, the balance of trade in goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (2.9 billion dinars), Germany (1.7 billion dinars), Libya (1 billion dinars) and Italy (406.5 million dinars), while the deficit in the balance of trade excluding energy fell to 3.8 billion dinars.
As a result, the deficit in the energy balance amounted to 4.9 billion dinars (56% of the total deficit), compared with 4.2 billion dinars in the first half of 2012.
