The 2024 finance law adopted on December 10, 2023, by the Assembly of People’s Representatives and promulgated by the President of the Republic provides for exceptional tariff measures targeting a certain number of products imported from Turkey.
The article which provides for these specific measures was adopted by 136 votes. Exceptional tariff measures will be applied to several Turkish products over three years starting January 1, 2024. They will be gradually lifted over the two years following their implementation.
The Ministry of Trade and Export Development and its Turkish counterpart signed, on December 3, in Istanbul, a decision of the Tunisian-Turkish Partnership Council which provides for the revision of the free trade agreement signed in 2004 between the two countries.
The agreement was signed by Minister Kalthoum Ben Rejeb and Turkish Minister of Commerce Ömer Bolat. Three main measures were included in the agreement mainly concerning the establishment of a list of agricultural and industrial products subject to tariff measures and the promotion of Turkish investments in Tunisia.
These are industrial products with similar products manufactured locally. Customs duties, currently 0%, will be increased to a rate of between 27% and 37.5% (75% of the duties applied under national legislation, i.e. standard tariffs under the most favored nation clause).
For agricultural products, the agreement provides for unilateral concessions to increase Tunisian exports to Turkey within the framework of annual duty-free quotas.
The third decision provides for more Turkish investments in Tunisia and the holding of a Tunisian-Turkish investment forum to help Turkish economic operators familiarize themselves with investment opportunities and projects in Tunisia.
Tunisia’s trade deficit during the first ten months of 2023 amounts to 15,856.6 million dinars (MDT), including -2,807.7 MTD with Turkey. Tunisia’s imports from this country fell by 23%, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics (INS) from November 2023.
