During a meeting held on December 3 in Istanbul, according to a press release published Monday by the Tunisian Ministry of Trade and Export Development
Tunisia announced on Monday the signing of a trade agreement with Türkiye relating to the revision of customs duties on a list of Turkish products, in a move aimed at reducing Tunisia’s trade deficit with this country.
The signing of the new agreement took place on Sunday, December 3, 2023, in Istanbul, at the end of a meeting chaired by the Turkish Minister of Commerce, Omer Bolat, and his Tunisian counterpart Kalthoum Ben Rejeb Guezzah “as part of the review and development of trade agreements that bring Tunisia closer to brotherly and friendly countries”, we can read in a press release from the Tunisian Ministry of Trade and Export Development.
The new agreement, which has been the subject of negotiations since October 2022, is based on the amendment of the free trade agreement signed between the two countries in 2004 and which entered into force in 2005.
The revision of the said agreement includes a list of industrial products equivalent to those manufactured in Tunisia, subjecting them again to customs duties for five years so that the duties go from the current status of total exemption (zero) to rates varying between 27% and 37.5%.
For the Tunisian government, “all the disputed points have been resolved and this important agreement was concluded by consensus between the two parties and by the requirements of cooperation and consultation.”
A press release published by the Tunisian Ministry of Commerce indicated that agricultural products will be the subject of unilateral concessions from the Turkish side, to support Tunisian exports to Türkiye in the form of annual quotas completely exempt from customs duties.
The two parties also committed to working for the success of the Tunisian-Turkish Economic Forum, which will be held during the first half of 2024 in Istanbul, stressing that this event will be an opportunity to further attract Turkish investors in many sectors, such as the food industry, the textile industry, and the automobile component industry.
It should be noted that Tunisia’s trade balance with Türkiye experienced a deficit until October this year, amounting to more than 770 million US dollars, although Turkish imports fell by 23 % compared to the same period of the year 2022, according to data from the Tunisian Institute of Statistics (INS).
