Tunisia’s trade deficit narrowed to TND -10,228.3 million in July 2023 compared to TND -13,723.5 million, in the first seven months of 2022, after exports went up by 11.1% and imports grew by 0.3%, according to a note published Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INS).
The coverage increased by 7.6 points compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching 77.9%.
The INS noted that the deficit was mainly due to the deficit recorded with certain countries, such as China (TND-4,774.8 million), Russia (TND-3,658.1 million), Algeria (TND -2,481.4 million), Turkey (TND -1,729.1 million), Ukraine (TND -813.3 million), Egypt (TND -573.2 million) and Greece (TND-363.8 million).
However, the balance of trade in goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (TND 3,276.2 million), Germany (TND 1,907.5 million), Italy (TND 517.8 million) and Libya (TND 1,232.4 million).
On the other hand, the deficit of the non-energy balance of trade narrowed to TND -4,526.9 million and the deficit of the energy balance was TND -5,701.4 million (56% of the total deficit) compared to TND -4,921.2 million in the first seven months of 2022.
The results of Tunisia’s foreign trade at current prices during the first seven months of 2023 show that exports increased by 11.1% compared with +23.1% during the same period in 2022. They reached TND 36,151.1 million against TND 32,529.1 million during the first seven months of 2022.
The INS explained that the increase in exports concerned several sectors. Exports from the agri-food sector increased by 13.6%, textiles, clothing and leather by 13.3% and machinery and electrical equipment by 19.4%. On the other hand, energy exports fell by 28.8% and mining, phosphates and derivatives by 5.4%.
Tunisia’s exports to the European Union (71.4% of total exports) increased by 15.7%. This development is explained by higher Tunisian exports to several European partners, such as France (+11.2%), Italy (+17.2%), Germany (+15.4%), Spain (+35.3%), Greece (+23.9%) and the Netherlands (43.2%).
Among the Arab countries, exports rose in Algeria (+48.1%) and Libya (+7%). On the other hand, they fell for Egypt (-28.7%) and Morocco (-8.1%).
Imports were virtually stable at +0.3%, compared with +31.5% in the same period of 2022. In value terms, imports reached TND 4,6379.4 million, compared with TND 46,252.6 million in the first seven months of 2022.
The INS explained that the slight increase in imports was due to the increase in imports of energy products (+0.6%), capital goods (+6.2%) and consumer goods (+4.6%). Imports of raw materials and semi-finished goods fell by 3.7%.
Imports with the European Union (43.8% of total imports) fell by 5.9% to TND 20,315.2 million.
According to the same data, imports from France also fell by 3.6%, from Italy by 11.2% and from Spain by 12.1%. On the other hand, they increased by 17% from Germany and by 23.2% from the Netherlands.
