TUNIS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia's trade deficit hiked to a "disturbing" level of 13.21 billion dinars (5.28 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of October 2017, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) of Tunisia announced Saturday.
The figures showed that 25.3 percent of the deficit was recorded in the energy sector, or 3.34 billion dinars, in the first ten months of this year.
Meanwhile, the country's imports valued 40.85 billion dinars, up 19.6 percent year on year. Exports rose by 18.2 percent to 27.64 billion dinars.
The mining, phosphates and derivatives industry witnessed the most notable drop of 7.1 percent in all the sectors of Tunisian exports.
The European Union remained the largest market for Tunisia, taking up 74.4 percent of its total exports. Enditem
