Tunisia's Trade Balance in 2025
In 2025, Tunisia continued its trade exchanges with the rest of the world in a global context of imbalance between exports and imports, according to official data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). Tunisian exports slightly increased, but remained under strong pressure from foreign demand and global competition.
Key Figures
According to the INS's foreign trade bulletin covering the first eleven months of 2025:
- Tunisia exported 57,916.6 million Tunisian dinars (MD), a moderate increase of +1.5% compared to the same period in 2024.
- This growth remains limited compared to the faster increase in imports (+5.8%), which widened the trade deficit to -20,168.5 MD over eleven months, representing a coverage of imports by exports of around 74.2%.
Main Exporting Sectors
The INS highlights a contrasting sectoral structure of exports in 2025:
- Mines, phosphates, and derivatives: robust performance with a growth of around +12%, reflecting global demand for phosphates for fertilizers and industrial products.
- Mechanical and electrical industries: notable growth (+7.7% to +7.8%); this sector includes cables, electrical components, and mechanical parts exported to Europe and Africa.
- Agro-food industry: decline (-11% to -14%), mainly due to the decrease in olive oil and certain processed food exports.
- Energy: sharp contraction of around -29% to -34%, linked to the decrease in sales of refined petroleum products.
- Textile, clothing, and leather: slight decline or stagnation (-1% to -1.8%), despite the sector's historical presence in European markets.
