Tunisian foreign trade flourishes

Tunisia's office for statistsics shows growth in trade Algeria’s National Centre for Data Processing and Statistics (CNIS), announced on Saturday that European Union countries remain Algeria’s main business partners in first half of 2013 .
It said around 61 percent of the country’s foreign trade operations are with EU nations.
According to the department, trade worth 64.25 billion US dollars was done in the first half of 2013, of which 60.94 percent was with Europe.
According to the department, exports from Algeria to Europe reached 14.98 bn USD, this year, recording an increase of 22.8% compared to the same period in 2012.
Spain is considered as Algeria’s first European customer with trade worth 5.39 bn USD, followed by Italy with 5.13 bn USD, Britain with 4.51bn, France with 3.66 bn USD and Netherlands with 2.71 bn USD.
Meanwhile EU companies remain Algeria’s biggest suppliers.  France ranks first with 3.33 bn USD, followed Spain with 2.72 bn USD, Italy with 2.51 bn USD and Germany with 1.34 bn.  China ranked Tunisia’s second biggest non-EU supplier with purchases valued at 3.31 bn.
Non-EU countries from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, OECD, which include Australia, Israel, Korea, Mexico, Turkey and Portugal, ranked second biggest importers of Tunisian manufactured goods.
Compared to the first half of 2012, exports made with these countries fell by 38.6 percent while imports from these countries increased by more than 11 percent.
The United States, of the OECD countries (non-EU), ranked the 6th biggest supplier for Algeria, comprising of around 7.24 percent of its imports, while Turkey ranked eighth.
South American countries imported 3.03percent (1.09 billion US dollars), and exported to Algeria 6.22 percent (1.76 bn USD).
Asian countries imported 4.62 percent (1.66 bn USD), and exported to Algeria 5.17 percent.
Trade from the Arab Maghreb Union countries, which includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania and Morocco, increased by 58.45 percent during the first half of 2013, compared to the same period of 2012.