The announcement of the construction of a road linking the town of Tindouf in Algeria to that of Zouiret in Mauritania is presented as a new economic relay between the two countries.
Last March, Algeria announced the start of construction of a road connecting the town of Tindouf, in the far south of the country, to the town of Zouiret in Mauritania. 890 kilometers long, this road is presented as a new economic relay between the two countries. It raises a lot of hope and should enter service in 2026.
Choukri Lagate is an engineer within a private company that works as a subcontractor for the public company Cosider, responsible for this vast project. He explains that the leveling and earthworks of the first part have already been carried out. The pace of work, he said, would progress as planned.
” We are on the right track and the pace of work is quite significant. We have already made good progress over the first hundred kilometers and we believe we can deliver the road on time. It is an excellent challenge because it is the first time that an Algerian company carries out this type of work outside the national territory,” the engineer assures DW.
If the construction started so quickly, it is because the project is not new. Developing roads towards Mauritania is an objective that has been around for several decades.
Changes in perspective
Djoudi Bousti is an economist and he explains that the objective is to allow Algerian companies to establish themselves in West Africa. According to him, “This road will help the deployment of Algerian companies, not only in Mauritania but also in West Africa. Likewise, Mauritanians will be able to invest in the Algerian market.” According to the economist “In 36 months, the economic landscape of the region will significantly change with this road”.
For Djoudi Bousti, this road is an opportunity for Algerian businesses. Indeed, cheap Algerian labor could make Algerian companies more competitive in the face of competition from European and Asian firms.
“For Mauritanians, they can export agricultural products and fish especially. For Algeria, there is an opportunity to find outlets for its manufacturing industries. In fact, this relationship existed in the past. There are 40 and even 50 years ago, Algeria had two counters: one in Nouakchott and the other in Nouadibou” explains Djoudi Bousti.
An exchange relationship that has since been forgotten and that Algeria would like to resurrect. An easier option than exporting goods across the Sahara.
A whole project
Ahmed Senai is a truck driver and he complains about the difficulty of the roads crossing the desert. He explains to DW that ” the road is very difficult in the Sahara. It is poorly asphalted, there are not enough gas stations, attacks are frequent and then animals like camels pose countless problems, sometimes fatal.
The driver also draws attention to the fact that there is “the heat which makes visibility very difficult”. For Ahmed “this road is welcome. First the road, then the infrastructure that goes with it,” he assures.
The Tindouf-Zouiret road therefore raises a lot of hope in the region. It is part of a vast program, alongside the Algiers-Lagos trans-Saharan project: this pan-African project, initiated in the 1960s and on which the end of work has been announced for several years, remains unfinished to this day.
