Algeria: After deteriorating to low levels, reaching 95 euros from January 2020, coinciding with the start of the Corona epidemic and the travel suspension measures, the tourist allowance increased in early August to reach 102 euros, against 15,000 dinars for each Algerian going abroad once a year.
Although the Algerian dinar has been stagnating for years and has not seen a recovery in recent months, the euro crisis and the rise in the value of the dollar against the European currency had given the dinar a new boost against the euro and helped to raise the value of the tourist allowance in the banks, which in recent months amounted to 95 euros Rise to more than 100 euros, more precisely 102 euros, during the month of August, at a time when this purse reached and exceeded 150 euros 10 years ago.
An economic expert, Abdel Rahman Aya, said that the increase in the value of the tourist allowance enjoyed by the Algerians going abroad is due to the rise in the value of the dollar against the euro, adding, “The dinar has not recovered but continues to fall, and any citizen can feel this through the rise in the value of the nisab for zakat this year compared to previous years when the value of the national currency fell in front of gold.”
AYA: THE VALUE IS VERY LOW AND DOES NOT MEET THE NEEDS OF MORE THAN TWO DAYS ABROAD
The spokesperson added: “While the justification for the rise in the exchange rate of the dinar against the euro is that its valuation depends on a basket of currencies, which is the rise in the price of the dollar against the euro, which automatically caused the exchange rate of the dinar to rise against the European currency, while the value of the dollar has increased due to the fluctuations in the price of oil recently because the relationship between the dollar and the oil market is inverse.
Ayah points out that the dinar is a managed currency, that is to say, that it is subject to the interventions of the Bank of Algeria and the Ministry of Finance and that its roof is controlled by the monetary authorities in Algeria and does is not subject to the logic of supply and demand, because the purpose of devaluing the dinar is sometimes to manage additional amounts in national currency after having transferred hydrocarbon export revenues from the dollar, while the purpose of increasing its value may be to reduce the import bill of certain products from abroad.
The economic expert believes that the value of the tourist scholarship today is very low and does not meet the needs of the Algerians for more than two days at the latest, because the citizen spends in the worst case 50 euros every day, which means that his stay of 10 days abroad requires him to benefit from a tourist scholarship equivalent to 500 euros, which was deemed rejected by the Algerian authorities, who are content to give the departing citizen to the abroad the equivalent of 15,000 dinars, obliging the traveler to acquire his hard currency needs from the black market.
As a solution to this problem, the expert suggested urgently opening exchange offices for hard currency in banks, with the sale of currency to those who go abroad for tourism at the value of the dinar on the black market, so that Algeria no longer loses “duffers” and to keep transactions of buying and selling currencies under its eyes.
This comes at a time when the government’s action plan includes in its axes the end of the existence of hard currency markets, and the opening of exchange offices for Algerians going abroad points that the Governor of the Bank of Algeria should address upon his arrival. to the National People’s Assembly to present the financial and monetary balance sheet and debate the files concerned at the beginning of the parliamentary session At the beginning of September, the parliamentarians protested against the absence of reports from the Bank of Algeria on the cash receipts of Algeria for several chapters.
