Tunisia’s trade balance deficit stood at 16.2 billion dinars at the end of t 2021, from 12.75 billion in 2020 and 19.4 billion in 2019, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) Tuesday.
Exports posted an increase of 20.5% in 2021 against a decline of 11.7% during the year 2020. They reached 46.6 billion dinars, against 38.7 billion. Similarly, imports went up 22.2% against a decline of 18.7% in 2020. In value, imports reached 62.8 billion dinars, against 51.5 billion in 2020. Therefore, the coverage rate lost 1 point compared to last year to 74.2%.
The increase observed in exports in 2021 has concerned foreign sales of the energy sector (+39%), those of mines, phosphates and derivatives (+83.2%), those of textiles, clothing and leather (+14.4%), and those of mechanical and electrical industries (+21.9%). On the other hand, exports of agri-food industries decreased by 3.9%.
As for the increase in imports, it comes from the rise recorded in Tunisia’s purchases of capital goods (+16%), raw materials and semi-finished products (+29.7%), consumer goods (+17%) and energy (+29.3).
The trade deficit is largely explained by the deficit recorded with some countries, such as China (-6.3 billion dinars), Turkey (-2.6 billion dinars), Algeria (-1.5 billion dinars) and Russia (-1.4 billion dinars).
In contrast, the balance of trade in goods posted a surplus with other countries, mainly with France (4 billion dinars), Germany (1.86 billion) and Libya (1.6 billion).
In addition, the trade balance deficit excluding energy narrowed to 11 billion dinars. Indeed, the deficit of the energy balance is 5.2 billion dinars (32.2% of the total deficit) against 4.2 billion in 2020.
