TUNIS, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia has set an ambition to reach 2 percent economic growth in 2018, according to a report by the Tunisian Government Presidency on Friday.
With a GDP's growth of 2 percent in the last quarter of 2017, Tunisia ended the past year with a growth of 1.9 percent against 1 percent in 2016, said the report.
The North African country has set an ambitious target in 2018 to reach a 2 percent growth, based on the current economy performance.
The Tunisian government said the inflation rate has worsened in February to 7.1 percent against 6.9 percent in January.
"This is mainly due to the steady pace of clothing-footwear prices and transport price, respective increasing by 6.9 percent and 9.5 percent," said the report.
In 2017, the inflation rate was at 5.3 percent against 3.7 percent in 2016.
During the last three months of 2017, the unemployment rate stands at 15.5 percent, or 639,000 unemployed among the active population of the country.
However, the unemployment rate among higher education graduates has declined.
As for monetary policy, the report said until February, the Tunisian dinar lost weight compared to the euro but recovered relatively compared to U.S. dollar after several months of depreciation.
By the end of February 2018, the balance of Tunisia's foreign trade shows an improvement of 42.9 percent for exports and 23.7 percent for imports, compared to the same period of last year.
In terms of investments, the industry sector has achieved the most remarkable feat for the first two months of this year, with a growth of 61 percent.
Among the sectors that have attracted investments are those as construction and ceramics, agri-food, chemical.
As one of the motors of the country's growth, accounting for almost 8 percent of its GDP, Tunisian tourism seems on the road to recovery, with 18.8 percent growth in tourism revenues till the end of February 2018.
