To encourage project leaders, the Algerian government announced several incentive measures and simplified regulations.
Amir balances between doubt and hope. “There have already been so many promises and so few concrete actions. But we have to be optimistic: many problems had never been addressed by the authorities, and now they are proposing solutions”, summarizes this manager of a company based in Algiers which provides website development services and mobile applications.
Making Algeria a “pole of innovation in Africa” is the ambition displayed by Yacine Oualid, the young minister responsible for start-ups and innovation. Appointed in January by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, he is the youngest member of the current government. At just 27 years old, his department is at the origin of Algeria Disrupt 2020, a national conference on the subject which was held on Saturday, October 3, in the capital.
Amir was one of the thousand participants invited to this event which brought together students, business leaders, experts, and representatives of government and financial institutions. “When I see that the minister meets players who are really skilled in this area and capable of making proposals for the new commercial code, then that reassures me, ” he explains.
End the bureaucracy
Proof of the enthusiasm displayed for this sector, several ministers and the Head of State were present during the meeting. “The era of administrative and bureaucratic obstacles is over,” said Abdelmadjid Tebboune, before announcing the creation of a special fund for the financing of start-ups.
A fund supplied by six public banks, but the amount of which has not yet been revealed, notes Ramy Zemmouchi, a passionate about new technologies that run the Tek Up Channel, a social information platform on the world of start-ups in Algeria and the region.
Among the measures taken by the government are also fiscal and parafiscal advantages with the exemption from certain taxes and corporate income tax, already provided for by the 2020 finance law, as well as a review of the legal frameworks and regulations. “Personally, I suffered from taxes and the lack of a clear legal form,” says Amir. They will reduce the tax burden for the first two years, which is good since these do not matter much to the country but have a negative impact on the finances of the start-up. “
Nevertheless, according to the young entrepreneur, it would have been preferable to “facilitate the investment of private actors” rather than once again soliciting public banks. “I am afraid that we will repeat the scenario of Ansej,” he explains, referring to this public credit fund for the creation of businesses intended for young people and to which many beneficiaries are now in debt. Out of the 380,000 companies created under Ansej, more than 70% are in difficulty, announced in August Nassim Diafat, Minister Delegate in charge of micro-enterprises.
“People will perhaps apply for the start-up label in order to obtain funding and take advantage of tax and parafiscal advantages,” recognizes Ramy Zemmouchi. ” But I think it will be more difficult because the minister’s idea is to have people from different ministerial departments, experts and tech professionals who will form a committee and decide what a start is. -up and whether the project is valid or not ”, argues this future 25-year-old computer engineer who participated in several working sessions with the ministry in charge of the file.
To avoid bureaucracy, all procedures should be managed through a single platform. Announced for October 15, it is still not online. “A first disappointment,” notes Ramy Zemmouchi. Despite this quack, he wants to remain positive: “A good part of the legal texts will be applied from the beginning of the year 2021, so we are in a kind of warm-up. The pessimism of some people is not really justified since it is a new team and a new approach. “
Connection issues
However, structural handicaps remain. “How do you develop start-ups and push people to innovate when you still suffer from a slow Internet connection, and electronic payment is still not generalized? “ Asks a young investor, a partner in the development of an online gaming application.
Algeria regularly appears at the bottom of the world rankings in terms of speed of Internet connection speed, fixed as mobile, and cuts made by the authorities during tests, such as the baccalaureate, disrupt the activities of companies.
Despite all these constraints, “young shoots” manage to succeed by adapting to their environment. In particular, in the VTC market, estimated at $ 100 million per year in the country, according to Sylabs, a start-up that works for the inclusion of entrepreneurial initiatives in the Algerian economic landscape.
To meet the demand in terms of transport, several companies have thus emerged over the past three years with a leader: Yassir, launched in 2017 and whose application records more than a million downloads on Android. Building on its success, a very young company has already deployed its services in neighboring countries, Tunisia and Morocco, in 2019.
