The data of the Statistics Institute in Tunisia showed that the rise in the costs of energy imports from oil and gas due to the high prices in international markets, widened the trade deficit gap by the end of the first quarter of this year.
The trade deficit worsened between January and March last year by 40.2 percent to reach 4.3 billion dinars ($1.42 billion) on an annual basis. The institute attributes this to the increase in energy imports by 87.2 percent, and raw materials and semi-manufactured materials by 36.7 percent. This trade deficit is mainly caused by the deficit recorded with some countries, the most important of which is China, at about $667.6 million.
While imports rose by 29.2 percent to $6.1 billion, exports recorded an improvement of 26.2 percent to $4.67 billion. This is mainly due to the increase in exports of the energy sector by 137.6% and the phosphate sector and its derivatives by about 152.2%.
Tunisia fears that the trade deficit gap will widen in conjunction with the deterioration of the local currency in its value against the US currency, so that the value of the dollar exceeds 3 dinars, which will negatively affect Tunisia's foreign currency reserves.
Source (Al-Arab Newspaper of London, Edited)
