The Central Bank of Tunisia's cash reserve continued its downward trend to its lowest level in more than two years due to the high costs of imports, while the government awaits to obtain a long-awaited credit line from the International Monetary Fund.
According to central bank data, foreign exchange reserves amounted to 22.6 billion dinars ($6.8 billion).
This balance allows covering 103 days of supply operations, compared to 130 days in the same period a year ago. This is the lowest supply period since February 2020.
The volume of hard currency with the Central in the first week of this month amounted to about 23.2 billion dinars ($ 7.1 billion), while the reserve in the first eight months of this year was about 7.7 billion dollars.
This decline comes as Tunisia suffers from a severe public finance crisis, a significant shortage of a number of basic consumer items and medicines, and disruptions in the supply of gas stations.
This decline is mainly due to the worsening of the trade deficit balance to the level of $5.2 billion in the first eight months of this year, compared to $3.2 billion a year ago, an increase of more than 60 percent.
Source (Al-Arab Newspaper of London, Edited)
