The food trade balance deficit narrows to TND 538.8 million at the end of June 2023, compared with TND 1,012.5 million during the same period in 2022, leading to an improvement in the coverage rate from 75.7% to 86.6% between these two years (6 months), the National Observatory of Agriculture (ONAGRI) said on Monday.

In terms of value, food exports rose by 10.3%, while imports fell by 3.5%.

The decline in the deficit is mainly the result of the rise by 36.3% in olive oil exports and the fall by 15.7% in grain imports, despite the increase in imports of sugar (+118.2%) and milk and milk by-products (+61.8%).

Export prices were up by 51.8% for olive oil (16.09 DT/kg), 33.8% for tomatoes, 2.1% for citrus fruits and 1.8% for dates compared with the same period the previous year.

On the other hand, the price of peaches fell by 11.0%.

By contrast, prices of cereal products fell by between 13% and 22%.

Import prices for grain were down by 22.1% for durum wheat, by 16.1% for common wheat, 12.8% for maize and 15.0% for corn.

The same applies to vegetable oils (-10.0%), while sugar prices rose by 22.7% and milk and milk products by 8.5% for milk and milk by-products.

The share of the food trade deficit in the overall trade deficit fell by 2.4 percentage points compared with the same period last year, from 8.6% to 6.2%.

Food imports accounted for 10.1% of total imports, while food exports represented 11.1% of total exports.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse