The Tunisian economy grew by 2.8 percent during the second quarter of this year on an annual basis, according to the data of the National Institute of Statistics, which attributed this growth mainly to the high rate of value-added growth in the service sector, which amounted to 5.2 percent on an annual basis. However, compared to the growth rate in the first quarter of this year, the gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 1.0 percent due to the decline in the performance of the building and construction sector and the industrial sector to a lesser extent.
On the other hand, the Tunisian trade balance recorded a deficit of $4.3 billion during the first seven months of this year, despite the improvement of Tunisian exports during that period by 23.1 percent, compared to 23 percent during the same period in 2021. While the increase in the percentage of imports amounted to 31.6 percent. This caused the trade deficit to worsen to 13.7 billion Tunisian dinars ($4.3 billion), compared to $2.7 billion during the first seven months of 2021.
The "National Institute of Statistics" attributed the worsening of the deficit to the increase recorded in imports in most sectors; Among them, mainly energy materials by 89.7 percent, raw materials and semi-finished materials by 35.7 percent, and consumables by 13.4 percent. On the other hand, the "National Institute of Statistics" data showed a decrease in the unemployment rate during the second quarter of this year to 15.3 percent.
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)
