Hyundai wants to return to Algeria with a new industrial project. The Korean automobile giant presented, on Monday, July 8, to the Minister of Industry and Pharmaceutical Production, Ali Aoun, a proposal for a new car manufacturing plant in Algeria.
The project was presented to Ali Aoun by a delegation including senior officials from Hyundai, led by Tarek Mosaab, head of the Korean giant’s Mena region, and the Omani Trading Company (OTE Group), the ministry said in a statement.
The delegation presented a project that ” will take into account, from the outset, the creation of a bodywork construction line and an automobile painting line, ” according to the press release.
Concretely, Hyundai is offering Algeria the establishment of a factory to manufacture ” three models of its brand’s tourist cars”, in addition to “two types of utility vehicles, and even electric vehicles “.
For his part, and concerning the choice of the land where the future Algerian factory of the South Korean manufacturer will be located, the minister asked Hyundai’s managers to ” accelerate the registration on the digital platform dedicated to this purpose as soon as possible to realize this project “, according to the press release. Does this mean that the Tiaret assembly unit is definitively abandoned?
Hyundai offers Algeria a new car manufacturing plant
On May 12, during his speech at the El Moudjahid Forum, Minister Ali Aoun said that all car assembly units installed before 2020, apart from Renault, were โ simple hangars .โ
Hyundai was one of the car manufacturers that had a strong presence in the Algerian market.
Arriving in the country in the early 2000s, he took full advantage of the opening of the local automobile market to the import of vehicles, quickly becoming a leader thanks to robust and inexpensive cars.
Distributed by a subsidiary of the Cevital group, it has succeeded in winning over Algerian customers. Its Accent model has become one of the most popular in the country.
In 2017, he launched an assembly plant in Tiaret with the private Tahkout group, with a capacity of 100,000 vehicles per year.
This unit did not survive the major anti-corruption operation launched by the Algerian authorities after the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019, under pressure from the popular Hirak.
Its owner Mahieddine Tahkout was arrested and heavily sentenced, the factory was closed and the Tahkout group was dismantled. Since 2020, the Hyundai unit, like all car assembly plants launched in Algeria between 2014 and 2019, has been at a standstill.
In March 2023, Algeria reopened its automobile market to imports by granting approvals to Fiat and Opel from the Franco-Italian-American group Stellantis and the Chinese JAC.
The brand immediately launched the construction of an assembly plant in Tafraoui near Oran. Starting production in December 2023, it is expected to produce 90,000 vehicles per year. Fiat is the biggest beneficiary of the reopening of the market to imports.
In 2023, Fiat Algeria imported 90,000 cars while Algerian vehicle imports did not exceed 160,000 units between March 2023 and April 2024.