Tunisia's Trade Deficit Expands Due to Export-Import Imbalance

Tunisia's trade deficit continued its ascending curve during the first five months of this year to reach 6.48 billion dinars (2.59 billion U.S. dollars), the National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced on Monday.

Despite an improvement in exports, particularly in crude oil, the trade deficit became worse due to the imbalance of exports, which have grown 14.2 percent, against imports with a growth of more than 17.8 percent.

The INS also revealed a decrease in the energy trade deficit of 1.53 billion dinars, accounting for 23.6 percent of the overall trade deficit of the country.

Tunisia's trade deficit is still relatively high with China (1.63 billion dinars), Italy (0.93 billion dinars), Turkey (0.82 billion dinars) and Russia (0.61 billion dinars), INS said.

The strong performance of Tunisian exports over the first five months is mainly due to the recovery in energy exports, which increased 46.3 percent, in addition to the 10.8 percent rise in agri-food exports.