Summary:

On 14 June 2025, the Tunisian Embassy in Beijing announced the shipment of newly built buses to Tunisia in July as the first of a total of 418 buses purchased from China’s Golden Dragon Bus.  

The deal was brokered during the Tunisian Minister of Transport’s visit to China in February 2024 where he discussed with Chinese officials cooperation in the transport sector. 

The announcement was followed by Chinese Ambassador Wan Li’s visit to the Tunisian city of Bizerte where he discussed with the governor progress on the large-scale bridge construction project there that is led by Chinese companies. 

Meanwhile, Tunisian Minister of Trade Samir Obeid affirmed Tunisia’s commitment to strengthening China-Africa relations during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in the Chinese city of Changsha. 

During the forum, China announced plans to exempt 53 African states from tariffs on their exports to China. 

Outlook: 

Tunisia is likely to continue seeking deals with China to support efforts to boost public services and infrastructure projects as China is offering advantageous terms for financial support, equipment purchases and construction. 

However, China’s contribution to development in Tunisia is unlikely to challenge Tunisia’s structural partnerships with western states as trade volumes with China remain smaller by comparison to Tunisia’s traditional European partners.  

The deficit in trade balance with China reflects Tunisia’s struggle to move from an opportunistic of intermittently awarding contracts for certain projects to a structural partnership that favors more balanced trade relation. 

As China has been promising to elevate trade ties, a promise that it fulfilled with Mauritania recently, no bilateral agreement on tariffs has been reached with Tunisia yet.

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