The Council of State Participations (CPE) recorded, Thursday, during its 184th session, held under the presidency of Prime Minister Nadir Larbaoui, the creation of a large public group dedicated to the engineering and realization of railway projects, through the reconfiguration of the public sector of railway infrastructure.
This approach, which is part of the strategic economic vision of the President of the Republic, and in application of his directives, aims to take advantage of the important railway program decided to synergize the engineering and production capacities of companies public companies specializing in the field of railway construction, as part of a coherent grouping of their capacities and know-how.
In this context, the planned organizational model is focused on the creation of a large group formed by a parent company EPE/SPA, to which four subsidiaries specializing in rail are attached. These are the economic public companies Setirail Spa, specialized in railway engineering (studies and monitoring of works), Infrarail Spa, specialized in railway infrastructure works, Railelect Spa, specialized in railway electrification, and Infrafer Spa , in charge of infrastructure and aggregate production.
Thus, Algeria will be equipped with a large-scale engineering and construction entity in the railway sector, capable of responding to major structuring railway projects, decided by the President of the Republic, with a view to railway network of the territory, through the densification of the network, which requires a significant mobilization of national engineering and construction capacities.
Raised to the rank of strategic sector, rail has become the priority of the Algerian president. A short-term national plan, including the connection of several regions of the country to the railway network, was launched including routes of 6,000 km, to reach 15,000 km.
Placed under the seal of national emergency, technical studies of structuring projects, with a view to extending the railway network from the north to the south of the country between Algiers-Tamanrasset-Adrar, have been launched. The idea is also to connect the domestic rail network to the continental one, via Mali, Libya and Nigeria, over a distance of more than 12,400 kilometers.
To do this, a connection across five major corridors was established. A first corridor extending over 2,439 km, from Algiers, passing through Boughezoul, Laghouat, Ghardaïa, El-Ménéa, In Salah, Tamanrasset, to the Algerian-Nigerian border. Then comes the 2nd corridor which extends over 2,210 km, connecting Oran, to the Algerian-Malian borders, via Béchar, Adrar and Bordj Badji Mokhtar.
The Ghara Djebilet mines, included in the third corridor, will be connected by the port area of Arzew, passing through Béchar and Tindouf over 1,650 km. The east of the country, included in the fourth corridor, will include Jijel, Constantine, Batna, Biskra, Touggourt, Hassi Messaoud, Illizi and Djanet, over a distance of 2,275 km. Finally, the fifth corridor will connect Annaba to Touggourt over a distance of 780 km, passing through Souk Ahras, Tébessa and Djebel Onk, El-Oued.
Therefore, the creation of this group aims to consolidate the technological autonomy of the country and to strengthen the position of national companies in the face of tough foreign competition, by increasing their negotiating capacities with or against foreign groups.
It is also a question of improving management control, by pooling resources and an economy of scale, particularly in terms of supply, and, finally, of inducing knock-on effects on national companies outside the portfolio, notably subcontractors, upstream and downstream of the value chain.
