Algeria has engaged in a race against time to redress the balance of foreign trade on both sides, by curbing imports under the pretext of “import rationalization” and by fighting against the “inflated invoices” of on the one hand, and by increasing non-oil exports on the other hand, thanks to new measures taken by various government agencies.
On August 1, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune chaired the first meeting of the Higher Committee for the Control of Customs Declarations and Commercial Operations, which includes the Prime Minister, Ministers of Finance and Trade, and Ministers of Agriculture. , justice and industry.
Immediately after this meeting, the head of the Algerian government, Ayman ben Abderrahmane, took the helm of the Algerian Advisory Council for the promotion of exports, which will be responsible in particular for defining, monitoring and evaluating the national strategy for the promotion of exports, which set Algeria the threshold of 13 billion dollars, as a target for its non-oil exports at the end of 2024.
According to Ali Bey Nasseri, President of the Association of Algerian Exporters and Foreign Trade Advisor, “The Algerian Advisory Council for the Promotion of Exports will have as its primary mission to define the objectives and strategies for the development of exports, in addition to evaluating export promotion programs and operations, while proposing the necessary and urgent measures to facilitate the expansion of non-hydrocarbon exports.”
The same speaker underlined, in a recent interview, that “Algeria has been trying to activate this advice since 2004, but each time the attempts have been aborted by parties who tried to impose the logic of (containers), c that is to say (the import mafia), which took advantage of the oil money, to flood Algeria with goods and inflate the bills, but this time we hope that the attempt will succeed given the presence of ‘a political will to increase exports outside of oil, and the improvement of the Algerian product and the transport network inside Algeria must also be accelerated, as the two most important conditions for the commercialization of “Made in Algeria” label.
The increases that have affected the prices of many widely consumed imported materials and the scarcity of many of them have reignited the controversy over what is known in Algeria as the “mafia of importers” and its impact on the country’s foreign trade. and the management of the country’s formal and commercial economy.
Fight against inflated import bills
In this context, Lunas Mohamed, professor of monetary economics at the University of Constantine, told The New Arab: “The Algerian President’s presidency of the meeting of the Supreme Committee for the Control of Customs Declarations and Commercial Operations translates by the declaration of war by the Algerian high authorities against the inflating the import bill, who suck the oil revenues under the cover of imports, which is a strong message to the import mafia which has imposed its logic on state institutions during decades.
The economist added that “the big names in the field of importing have established a narrow path in which hard currencies are mined in an intelligent way, the first of which is the establishment of export companies in countries like the United States. Indonesia or Malaysia and Dubai, and they are colluding with Chinese producers by inflating dollar sales bills. “.
These ‘barons’ also offer to small importers to lend them money in dollars and euros in Asian and European capitals, on the condition that the small importers compensate them in dinars in Algeria, and thus the currency is taken informally. and away from the eyes of the authorities, he concluded.
