(TAP) – Tourist revenues edged down 47% to 1.085 billion dinars at the end of the June 2020, compared to the same month last year, according to the financial and monetary indicators of the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT).

This drop is mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the first measures taken to curb it consisted of closing Tunisia’s borders, as most countries.

The BCT also reported a slight drop in cumulative labour income of 5%, that is 2.1 billion dinars.

However, cumulative external debt servicing edged up by 6% during H1 of 2020 to 4.7 billion dinars.

The BCT’s indicators also recorded on July 3 a 33% fall at the level of the overall volume of investment, standing at 10.4 billion dinars, compared to June 2019.

However, the overall interbank transactions edged up 33%, to slightly over 1 billion dinars.

The money market rate stabilised at 6.84% the past months, compared to 7.83% in July 2019.

This is due to the drop in the key interest rate by 100 basis points in March 2020, to 6.75%.

A measure taken by the BCT as part of efforts exerted to address the economic fall-out of the COVID-19.