The Tunisian economy has reached a growth rate of 1.9%, for the whole year 2017, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced.
On a year-over-year basis, gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.0% in the fourth quarter of 2017, over the same quarter of 2016, and 0.8% from the third quarter of 2017.
Value added of the manufacturing industries leaped 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016, but fell 2.4% compared to the third quarter of 2017.
The INS said the positive progress of these sectors, during the last three months of the past year, notably by the development of the activities of the agricultural and agri-food industries (+4.9%), the mechanical and electrical industries (+4.3%), and textiles, ready-to-wear and footwear (+1.9%).
On the other hand, the VA of the building materials, ceramics and glass sector decreased by 5.8%. The same goes for the chemical industries sector, which fell by 3.9%.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, the value added of the non-manufacturing industries was 3.8% lower than in the same period of 2016, due to the continued decline in production in the oil and natural gas extraction sector by 5.8%, despite a remarkable 21.7% increase in production in this sector compared to the third quarter of 2017.
The fall also marked the mining sector which, for the first time in 2017, fell by 15.9%, while it had experienced a positive growth of 20.9% during the first 9 months of 2017. The construction sector went down by 3.1%.
The market services sector registered a positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2017. Its value added jumped by 4.3% compared to the same period of 2016, following the rise in the VA of all its sectors, including financial services (+13.7%), hotel services, restaurants and cafés (+ 8.5%), in addition to the transport services sector, whose value added increased by 4.2%.
On the other hand, the non-market services sector kept a positive growth, with a 0.4% increase in value added compared to the fourth quarter of 2016.
The value added of the agriculture and fisheries sector went up significantly by 2.5% throughout 2017 and by 2% in the fourth quarter of 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries reorts.
TunisianMonitorOnLine (Source :INS)