Once again, the figures from the INS, the national statistician, bring a flagrant denial to certain presidential alibis of Kais Saïed, and his search for scapegoats to explain the shortcomings of his economic policy, if it ever existed, and his postures exculpatory by a conspiracy in all sauces.
First evidence, consumer goods are “unscathed” from any accusation of deterioration in the trade balance. Second evidence is the materials and semi-finished products that Tunisia imports the most, after fuels and cereals in particular. And the best trade minister can’t change that. Look at the numbers from the INS :
Tunisia still imports more than it exports
At the end of 2022, trade-in value remains on the same trend, characterized by a more active pace of imports than exports. Indeed, exports increased by +23.4% against +20.5% during 2021. They reached the level of 57,573.2 MD against 46,654.2 MD in 2021.
As for imports, they evolved more quickly with a rate of +31.7% against +22% during the year 2021. In value, imports reached 82789.2 MD against 62864.9 MD during the year 2021.
Following this trend in exports and imports, the trade balance stood at -25,216 MD at the end of the year against -16,210.7 MD during 2021. The coverage rate lost 4.7 points compared to 2021 to stand at 69.5%.
The ranking of countries with which Tunisia loses a lot in trade exchange puts China in the first place. But the INS does not say what is important. Just like Turkey. And if the INS is designed to make an effort of better communication, we could perhaps discover that it is not Chinese-style junk from the Middle Empire, the factory of the world, or only glitters from Turkey, because for Algeria, we know that it is the hydrocarbons that we import the most from our western neighbor.
Consumer goods, the bare minimum of imports
The balance of trade balance is in a deficit of 25216MD. This deficit comes mainly from that recorded with certain countries, such as China (-8532.5 MD), Turkey (-3958.8 MD), Algeria (-3908.4 MD), Russia (-2758, 9 MD), as well as Italy (-2302 MD) and Spain (-772.3 MD).
On the other hand, the balance of the trade balance of goods recorded a surplus with other countries, mainly France (4432.7 MD), Germany (2944 MD), and Libya (1899 MD).
On the other hand, the results show that the trade balance deficit excluding energy is reduced to -14,649.2 MD and that the energy balance deficit stands at -10,566.8 MD (41.9% of the total deficit). ) against 5219.2 MD during the year 2021.
It thus appears, and the figure has a hard head, that it is the import of hydrocarbons that “eats” the vast majority of Tunisia’s foreign currency reserves (they were at 22.655 billion DT or 99 days of imports on 16 January 2023), followed by raw materials and semi-finished products which, together with capital goods without which there will be no production in the country, generally mean that there is investment from the private sector. Food products only come in 3rd place in the trade deficit, and consumer goods which are wrongly accused of being the main cause of the deficit, are only in 4th place. These are facts, not numbers!
