The Tunisian Institute of Statistics (governmental) revealed that the trade deficit had worsened at the end of last July, reaching 8.7 billion Tunisian dinars (about 3.1 billion dollars), an increase by 1.2 billion Tunisian dinars, compared to 7.56 billion dinars (2.7 billion dollars) until July 2020.
Despite the increase in the deficit, exports witnessed an improvement, while the value of imports increased, and the coverage ratio witnessed a noticeable improvement and the coverage ratio of exports to imports increased.
Despite the value of the trade deficit recorded during the past months of the current year compared to the previous year, it recorded a decrease compared to 2019, when the value of the deficit was no less than 11 billion Tunisian dinars.
At the level of Tunisian trade exchanges with abroad, the reality of exports and imports has improved alike, which indicates a gradual return of production engines to activity. As a result, the value of Tunisian exports increased by 23% during the first seven months of 2021 and amounted to about 26.4 billion Tunisian dinars. As for imports, they increased by 21 percent and amounted to about 35 billion Tunisian dinars.
The coverage ratio of imports to exports was estimated at about 75%, and it recorded an increase of about 5% compared to the same period in 2019.
Source (Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)
