São Paulo – In the first quarter of 2020, Tunisia shipments to Brazil slid by 54.7% from a year ago. The North African country sold USD 9.2 million worth in goods to Brazil, mostly chemicals, machinery, olive oil, and clothing. Exports from Brazil to the Arab country declined by 6.5% in Q1, grossing USD 51.6 million. Brazil mostly sells cereals like soy, as well as sugar, tobacco and coffee to Tunisians.
“Let’s see if it gets better a month from now – coronavirus will decide it,” ambassador from Tunisia in Brasília, Mohamed Hedi Soltani, said in an interview with ANBA. He said that a promotion program of Tunisian olive oil in Brazil is on hold.
“Our diplomatic and political relations are great. We need to do more businesses and hope everything goes back to normal in Brazil and the world,” he said. According to him, Tunisian olive oil production was not affected, and year-to-date through April 150,000 tonnes of the product were exported to the world.
Soltani said that Tunisia is in reasonable situation given the pandemic as it started lockdown early, in mid-March, and that commerce and industry is reopening this week. According to up-to-date figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), the country has 1,022 confirmed cases, 482 recovered patients and 43 deaths from the disease.
“From May 4 to 14 some sectors are reopening, not all of them, and then others will open if the situation gets better, or not, but the country remains in lockdown,” Soltani said. He reported that Tunisia has a curfew from 8 pm to 6 am, when nobody can leave their homes.
Services, transport and tourism were the country’s sectors most affected by the pandemic, the ambassador said. “Tunisia welcomed over 9 million tourists last year, and now everything has been halted,” he said. Soltani said that nobody can predict when the activities of the sector will resume, as tourism depends on the reopening of the other countries. The tourism sector represents around 7% of the country’s GDP and employs 1.5 million people.
“Tunisia is providing an emergency assistance of DT 200 (USD 68) per person to those in need,” Soltani said. Air, sea and road passenger transport has also been discontinued, but the entrance and exit of cargo remains in the Arab country.
Tunisians in Brazil
Around 500 Tunisians currently live in Brazil, most of them in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba, according to the embassy. Approximately 10 citizens are trying to go back to Tunisia, but some passenger flights are suspended. “The embassy is helping them, but we need to have a flight that goes through Europe or Morocco,” the ambassador explained. For now, the embassy is offering a financial help from BRL 200 to BRL 500 (USD 35-88) to Tunisians that are in the country and can’t come back. Most of them are in São Paulo.
Soltani mentioned that around 32 of the Tunisians living in Brazil are out of work due to the lockdown and are also receiving support from the embassy. The embassy is working as usual. “The embassy is open – I can’t close it, we have to help people, but all employees are working with facemasks, following the hygiene recommendations,” he said.
The passenger vessel MSC Seaview docked in Santos that is in quarantine due to the pandemic has five Tunisian crewmembers that also with to go back to their country. “It’s a very tricky situation, everyone must wait, we do what we can,” he said. None of the Tunisians were infected by the disease, which has contaminated 80 people in the ship, as reported by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) last Monday (4). The ship must remain quarantined at least until May 14.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
