Tunis/Tunisia — The trade deficit narrowed significantly by 49.7%, reaching TND 550.6 million in January 2024, against TND 1,095.4 million in January 2023, data published on Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (French: INS) show.

The cover ratio thus increased by 8.1 points compared with January 2023, to 90.3%. The reduction in the deficit is explained by the increase in exports by 2.1% to 5.1 billion dinars, while imports fell by 7.1% to 5.7 billion dinars in the first month of 2024.

The increase observed in exports mainly concerns the agro-food industries sector (+66.2%) following the sharp increase in sales of olive oil, draining revenues to the 607.8 MD, in January 2024, compared to 270.1 MD, a year earlier.

On the other hand, exports of the energy sector fell by 21%, those of mines, phosphates and derivatives by 17.8%, those of textiles, clothing and leather by 6.2% and those of the mechanical and electrical industries by 2.1%.

As for the decline observed in imports (7.1%), it is mainly due to the decrease in imports of energy products (3.5%) and raw materials and semi-finished products (8.7%). , as well as consumer goods (0.5%), While imports of capital goods increased by 3.4%.

The trade balance deficit comes mainly from the deficit recorded with certain countries, such as China (-596.4 MD), Russia (-401.3 MD), Turkey (-216.5 MD), Greece (-218.5 MD) and Algeria (-32.5 MD).

The balance of trade in goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (441 MD), Italy (397.4 MD), Germany (193.3 MD), Libya (101.3 MD) and Morocco (29.9 MD).

On the other hand, it should be noted that the balance of the trade balance excluding energy for January 2024 is in surplus of 133 MD and that the deficit of the energy balance amounted to 683.6 MD, at the end of January 2024 , against 639.6 MD in January 2023.