Tunisia's foreign trade in 2022: Italy and China overtake France for first time (OTE)
(TAP)- Italy has become Tunisia's first trading partner in terms of volume in 2022, overtaking France, according to a note published by the Tunisian Economic Observatory (OTE) on Friday.
In fact, Italy had become Tunisia's first supplier in 2017, ahead of France. In 2022, China will overtake France to become the country's second supplier, according to the OTE.
However, France remains Tunisia's leading export market.
According to OTE, these changes at the top of the ranking of Tunisia's trading partners hide deeper changes. In fact, the volume of trade with Tunisia's first four trading partners (Italy, France, Germany and China) increased in 2022, but did not exceed 30%.
Between 2021 and 2022, the volume of trade with Algeria (107%) and the United Arab Emirates (107%) more than doubled, while that with the United Kingdom (48%), Brazil (49%), Turkey (49%), Libya (50%), India (56%), Saudi Arabia (57%) and Russia (84%) increased by around 50% or more. The Observatory thus notes "the emergence of an active diversification of trading partners, with the comeback of historical partners such as Libya and the United Kingdom". It reports a "strong dynamism in exports, which have increased by 141% to Brazil, 97% to India and 87% to the United Kingdom".
Libya is by far the most advantageous partner for Tunisia, with a coverage of imports by exports of 437% in 2022, followed by Morocco (222%) and the United Kingdom (209%).
The Netherlands, Germany and France are also countries with ratios above 100%.
On the other hand, Tunisia, which exports almost nothing to China and Russia, finds itself with extremely low coverage rates of 2% with these two countries.
While exports to Algeria and Turkey have increased by 54% and 50% respectively, exports to China and Russia have decreased by 36% and 10% respectively. An export strategy towards these two markets is therefore necessary, according to OTE.