Transglory launches new service between Tunisia and China

The new shipping service is expected to help Tunisia recover its regional market position and enhance China’s presence on the African continent, according to Barcelona-based freight forwarder Transglory.    Barcelona-based freight forwarder Transglory is launching a new shipping service between Tunisia and China, Tunisian authorities and locally-based foreign investors said Dec. 1.
   The new line, which links the Tunisian Rades port and the Chinese Qingdao port in the northern suburbs of the capital Tunis, is expected to help Tunisia recover its regional importance to the shipping market and enhance China’s presence in African continent, Transglory said.
   “Importing and exporting to and from this Chinese destination are consolidating similar services from other leading ports,” Transglory Development Department head Louis Florensa, reportedly told China’s Xinhua news service during an interview published Dec. 3.
   “Our main challenge, now fulfilled, is to be the preferential partner of Tunisian importers, with four weekly services from Hong Kong, Ningbo and two others in Shanghai,” Florensa was quoted as saying.
   Tunisian Ministry of Industry and Trade foreign trade department Director Khaled Ben Abdallah reportedly told Xinhua that the new line’s launch could generate a triangular trade platform linking China, East Africa and Tunisia and that the line should converge all kinds of services, including health, tourism, equipment and information and communication technologies.
   Through the first 10 months of 2017, Tunisia’s trade deficit with China reached nearly 487 million dinars, Abdullah said, equal to about $196 million. The overall deficit with China is 3.64 billion dinars (U.S. $1.45 million), according to Tunisia’s National Institute of Statistics.
   Tunisia’s overall trade deficit rose to 13.21 billion dinars (U.S. $5.32 billion) during the same period compared with 10.78 billion in the first 10 months of 2016, according to Tunisia’s NIS.