Algeria: “Banks And Real Estate Freeze Investment Relaunch”

• The head of the Economic Affairs, Development, Industry, Trade and Planning Commission of the National People’s Assembly (APN), Nabil Louhibi, revealed that a report on the return of investment has been prepared by the relevant commission that he chairs at the National People’s Assembly, and is to be delivered upon completion at the behest of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad, and the Government ministers concerned with economic sectors.
• Mr Louhibi explained that this report was meant to lift the “brakes” on dormant investment in the national market, which has been idle for two years.

The report includes 4 points, and is based on a data bank on investors available to the Economic Affairs Commission, as it includes all the problems and complaints filed recently.

• Mr Nabil Louhiibi said in a statement to “Echorouk” that the report deals with investment barriers in 4 points, namely banking transactions and the way the banking system operates, which still needs deep reforms to achieve economic revival, considering how the way banks deal and the used pattern of granting loans stressing that banking services today are seen as an obstacle in the face of those wishing to invest in the national market.

The Chairman of the APN’s Economic Affairs Commission also spoke about the real estate file allocated for investment, which includes industrial, agricultural and tourist real estate as well as real estate directed to the services, distribution and trade sector, calling for the release of properties that remain frozen, which investors and industrialists have not received for a long time.
Mr Louhibi emphasized that the report also calls for the need to spur economic diplomacy, stressing that there are many bilateral and multilateral international relations that must be discussed and moved commercially and economically, considering that the “dormancy” of this diplomacy does not serve Algeria economically, and that moving economic and commercial diplomacy is the key to boosting investments in Algeria.
• The report also focuses on the need to get out of the concentration of investments in the capital, cities and major provinces in order to be able to revive the national economy, as it is inconceivable that all investments and factories are located in Algiers and its surrounding cities, at a time when the country’s area exceeds two million square meters.
Mr. Nabil Louhibi further called for the need to separate the outbreak of the Corona virus epidemic from the popular street movement that Algeria experienced in 2019, and the state of economic and investment stalemate that continues today, stressing the importance of distinguishing between political, health and economic problems, with special attention to be paid to economic development, reform of mindsets, and working out of schemes as well as strategies in the short, medium and long terms.
• According to the head of the Economic Affairs Commission of the National People’s Assembly, the economic sectors to be relied upon during the next stage, are the foodstuffs and manufacturing industries, petrochemicals, tourism, building materials production, mining exploitation, agricultural development and trade and distribution regulation, and this in keeping with to the proposals of the Economic Affairs Commission.
In this context, the latter called for the speedy revival of internal tourism notably by exploiting the “stalemate” now besetting international tourism.