TUNIS  - Tunisia's foreign currency reserves have risen to the equivalent of 106 days of imports compared to only 77 days a year ago, benefiting from a strong recovery in the tourism sector, official data showed on Friday.

The central Bank said that Tunisia's foreign exchange reserves reached 18.9 billion dinars ($6.63 billion), versus 12.5 billion at the same point in 2018.

The rise in currency reserves will help the efforts of financial authorities to support the value of the local dinar currency, which has begun to recover after years of declines, rising about 8 percent against the euro and dollar since the beginning of the year.

Tourism revenues rose by 38 percent in first ten months of 2019 to 5 billion dinars compared to 3.5 billion dinars at the same point in 2018.

Tunisia expects a record 9 million visitors by the end of 2019 after recovering from the impact of Islamist attacks targeting tourists in 2015.

Tourism Minister Rene Trabelsi said that 8.4 million tourists had visited Tunisia so far this year.

($1 = 2.8491 Tunisian dinars)

(Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) ((tarek.amara@thomsonreuters.com;))