São Paulo – The volume of investment in industry in Tunisia grew 42% in the first half of the year, according to a study by the Tunisian Agency for the Promotion of Industry and Innovation (APII). They totalled 1.063 billion Tunisian dinars (US$ 692 million) in the first months of 2012, as against 749.2 million dinars (US$ 487 million) from January to March 2011.
One of the sectors that contributed most to the advance was leather and shoes, where investment grew 802%, from four million Tunisian dinars (US$ 2.6 million) to 36.1 million (US$ 23.4 million). There was growth of 53.4% in the textile industry, to 34.2 million dinars (US$ 22.2 million), 21% in the mechanical and electric industry, to 182 million Tunisian dinars (US$ 118.5 million) and 11% in the agricultural food sector, which rose to 274 million Tunisian dinars (US$ 178 million).
Of the total invested, 36% had foreign capital participation. That is, 387 million Tunisian dinars (US$ 251 million) were invested from abroad. And of this share, 84.3 million dinars (US$ 54 million) was mixed capital (domestic and foreign) and 302.8 million dinars (US$ 197 million) was purely foreign capital, according to the APII.
The Tunisian agency also disclosed the export figures, which grew 7.7% in the first quarter of the year as against the same period in 2011, to 5.2 billion Tunisian dinars (US$ 3.3 billion). Foreign sales by the agroindustry sector rose 33.7%, those of the chemical sector, 9.5%, those of the mechanical and electrical sector, 8.6%, and those of copper and shoes, 0.3%.
*Translated by Mark Ament
