Tunisia’s exports recorded a fall of -20.6% at the end of April, against an increase of +16.5% in the four months of 2019, to 12.5 billion dinars, against 15.7 billion at the end of April 2019, according to data published by the INS.
Similarly, imports recorded a decrease of 21.5% against an increase of 18.7% during the four months of 2019.
In value, imports reached 17.3 billion dinars against 22.1 billion dinars during the same period of 2019.
As a result of this development, the trade deficit decreased by 1.5 billion dinars to 4.84 billion, compared to 6.33 billion during the first four months of 2019.
This deficit remains largely explained by the deficit recorded with some countries, such as China (-1.65 billion dinars), Turkey (-825.1 million dinars), Algeria (-550.8 million), Italy (-460.6 million) and Russia (-444.7 million).
On the other hand, the balance of trade recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly with France (965.5 MD), Germany (295.8 MD), Libya (314.7 MD) and Morocco (148.2 MD).
The coverage rate went up 0.8 points compared to the same period in 2019 to 72.1% compared to 71.3% during the same period in 2019.
The fall in exports (-20.6%) during the first four months of the year concerns several sectors such as textiles, clothing and leather (-33.6%), mechanical and electrical industries (-25%) and mining, phosphates and derivatives (-5.9%).
On the other hand, the agriculture and food-processing industries sector recorded a 4.8% rise, following the rise in olive oil sales (890.5 MTD vs 579.1 MTD) and energy sector sales which improved by 9.7%.
The -21.5% drop in imports is mainly due to the decrease in imports of capital goods (-28.7%), raw materials and semi-finished products (-20.9%), consumer goods (-21.6%) and energy (-18.9%) under the effect of the decline in purchases of refined products (1,569 MTD vs 1,990 MTD) and natural gas (738.3 MTD vs 1,364 MTD).
The decrease in imports is mainly due to the decrease in imports of capital goods (-28.7%), raw materials and semi-finished products (-20.9%), consumer goods (-21.6%) and energy (-18.9%) under the effect of the decrease in purchases of refined products (1,569 MTD vs 1,990 MTD) and natural gas (738.3 MTD vs 1,364 MTD).
The results show that the deficit of the balance of trade excluding energy went down to 3.13 billion dinars.
Indeed, the energy balance deficit stands at 1.71 billion dinars (35% of the total deficit) against 2.43 billion during the same period in 2019.
