The trade balance deficit shrank to TND 2,358,5 million during the first two months of 2023, compared to TND 2,553,9 million during the same period in 2022, down by 7.65%.
According to the monthly bulletin (March 2023) on the results of foreign trade published Saturday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the coverage rate gained 3.1 points compared to the same period in 2022, to stand at 81%.
Exports increased by 11.6% during this period against 31.6% during the same period last year, reaching a value of TND 10,044,3 million against TND 8,999,2 million during the same period last year, according to the results of Tunisia’s trade with the world at current prices during the first two months of 2023.
Imports grew by 7.4% against 32.2% during the same period in 2022.
In value, imports rose to TND 12, 402,9 million against TND 11,553,1 million during the first two months of 2022.
Following this growth in exports (+11.6%) and imports (+7. 4%), the trade deficit settled at a level of -TND 2,358,5 million, the INS underlined, specifying that this deficit is mainly due to the deficit recorded with some countries, such as China (-TND 1,179,6 million), Turkey (-TND 471,7 million), Algeria (-TND 974,5 million), Russia (-TND 401,2 million), Ukraine (-TND 288,6 million), Egypt (-TND 242,0 million) and Greece (-TND 116,4 million).
However, the balance of trade in goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (TND 958,6 million),
Germany (TND 591,8 million), Italy (TND 220,2 million) and Libya (TND 391,2 million).
On the other hand, the trade balance deficit excluding energy narrowed to TND 665,1 million, knowing that the energy balance deficit stood at TND 1,693,4 million, accounting for 71.8% of the total deficit as against TND 779,3 million during the first two months of 2022.
Exports up by 11.6
The increase of 11.6% in exports during the first two months of 2023 involved several sectors. Indeed, the exports of the agro-food industries sector went up by 17.1%, those of textiles, clothing and leather by 17.8% and those of mechanical and electrical industries by 23.7%.
However, exports of the energy sector fell by 42.8% and those of mines, phosphates and derivatives by 23.9%.
Thus, according to geographical distribution, Tunisian exports to the European Union (72.3% of total exports) grew by 18.2%. This is explained by the rise in Tunisian exports to several European partners, such as France (+18.9%), Italy (+13.5%), Germany (+22.2%), Spain (+33.4%), Belgium (+17.6%) and the Netherlands (+27.6%).
Exports to the Arab countries saw an increase with Algeria (+53.6%), Libya (+29.3%) and Saudi Arabia (+41.3%).
Conversely, they fell by 18.1% with Egypt and by 4% with Morocco.
Imports up by 7.4
The 7.4% rise in imports is due to the increase posted in imports of energy products up by 34.7%, capital goods by 34.7%, consumer goods by 5.7%, raw materials and semi-finished products by 0.9%.
Imports with the EU (44.3% of total imports) showed an increase of 4.6% to TND 5,494,1 million.
Imports from Italy were up by 1.4% and from Germany by 22%. On the other hand, they dropped by 3.7% from France.
