Tunisia's food trade balance records 295 MTD deficit
The coverage rate of exports by imports decreased to 63% in January and February 2017, compared with 80.6% in 2016. This situation is the result of a significant increase in the value of food imports by 51%, in particular, while exports went up only 18.1%.
Their sharp increase is explained by the change in the pace of purchases of most basic food products during this period and the rise in their world prices, at a time when the Tunisian dinar exchange rate is deteriorating compared to international currencies.
Part of this was due to changes in the pace of other non-basic food products such as bananas (+ 64%) and food preparations. Regarding foodstuffs whose import value declined, potatoes (-22%) were one of the main items.
In terms of exports, Tunisia mainly exported dates with revenues up by 76% to 128 million thanks to improvement of exports by 34% and prices by 32%, as well as vegetables and fruit preparations (+ 26%) and to a lesser extent citrus fruits (+ 1%).
Domestic sales of fresh vegetables and canned goods decreased by 2%, and 24%, respectively.
source: africanmanager.com
