Tunisia's Trade Balance Deficit is 13.7 percent

  • Tunis, Republic of Tunisia
  • 13 September 2021
1

The Tunisian Institute of Statistics (governmental) revealed that the trade deficit increased by 13.7 percent at the end of last August, compared to the same period in 2020. The development of the deficit during the period between August 2020 and August 2021 was from 9.213 billion Tunisian dinars (about 3.4 billion dollars) to 10.48 billion dinars (about 3.88 billion dollars).

The coverage ratio of exports to imports recorded an improvement by 1.6 percent to reach 73.9 percent, and exports increased until the end of last month by 23.5 percent, while imports, in turn, rose to record an increase of 20.8 percent.

The volume of Tunisian trade exchanges increased during the first eight months of this year as a result of the development of the movement of exports and imports. However, the domestic trade balance still suffers from imbalance, especially with a number of countries that dominate the Tunisian market through the multiplicity of products and the low cost of production compared to Tunisian products. Turkey and China are at the top of the countries in which trade exchanges tend to benefit, which had a direct impact on the foreign exchange stock in Tunisia.

Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)