The latest indicators issued by the Central Bank of Tunisia showed that its net foreign currency reserves increased by more than two billion dinars (about 720 million dollars), which represents 12 days of imports.
With this amount that Tunisia obtained from the Special Drawing Rights granted by the IMF, the value of cash reserves amounted to about 21.8 billion dinars ($7.8 billion). Tunisia had recently received from the International Monetary Fund about 552 million SDRs, after the Fund's Board of Directors agreed to redistribute them in mid-September.
The cash reserves have been declining since 2011 to reach their lowest level after the terrorist attacks in 2015 when they amounted to about $4.3 billion following the decline in tourism activity, one of the main sectors generating hard currency. The highest level of reserves was recorded at the beginning of this year, when they amounted to nearly 8.25 billion dollars. The rise in foreign exchange reserves gives Tunisia's faltering economy a new point of hope, as this opens margins for the authorities to move in order to confront the severe financial crisis in light of the changes in the political arena.
Source (London-based Al-Arab Newspaper, Edited)
