Overview: The economy depends primarily on petroleum, phosphates, and tourism for continued growth. Agriculture suffered severely in 1988 from the worst drought in years, accentuated by an invasion of locusts, with the grain crop down to roughly one-fourth of normal. At the same time, tourism spurted because of the opening of the Libyan border. Tunisia remains in a weak foreign financial position, its external debt approaching the GNP in size. A series of economic reforms improving the business climate and sizable infusions of aid from the IMF and the World Bank have helped stabilize the situation. Unemployment continues high, in part because of workers coming back from other oil-producing countries.

GDP: $9.6 billion, per capita $1,270; real growth rate 5.8% (1987 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 7.2% (1987)

Unemployment rate: 18% (1987 est.)

Budget: revenues $3.08 billion; expenditures $3.42 billion, including capital expenditures of $1.0 billion (1987)

Exports: $2.1 billion (f.o.b., 1987); @m5commodities--hydrocarbons 40%, agricultural products 18%, phosphates and chemicals 18%; @m5partners--EC 73%, Middle East 9%, US 1%, Turkey, USSR

Imports: $3.0 billion (c.i.f., 1987); @m5commodities--industrial goods and equipment 57%, hydrocarbons 13%, food 12%, consumer goods; @m5partners--EC 68%, US 7%, Canada, Japan, USSR, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria

External debt: $6.8 billion (December 1988)

Industrial production: growth rate 1% (1986)

Electricity: 1,493,000 kW capacity; 4,209 million kWh produced, 540 kWh per capita (1988)

Industries: petroleum, mining (particularly phosphate and iron ore), textiles, footwear, food, beverages

Agriculture: cereals (barley and wheat), olives, grapes, citrus, vegetables; not self-sufficient in food

Aid: NA

Currency: Tunisian dinar (plural--dinars); 1 Tunisian dinar (TD) = 1,000 millimes

Exchange rates: Tunisian dinars (TD) per US$1--0.9210 (January 1989), 0.8578 (1988), 0.8287 (1987), 0.7940 (1986), 0.8345 (1985)

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Tunisia on this page is re-published from the 1989 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Tunisia Economy 1989 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Tunisia Economy 1989 should be addressed to the CIA.