Algeria Delays Opening Its Borders To Africans Keen To Enter Its Territory

Algeria has put off the signing of the Convention on the Free Movement of Persons in Africa, due to the need to explain its dimensions to the national public opinion at a time when Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said that the ongoing economic situation in Algeria requires a transitional period allowing for the implementation of the African Free Trade Agreement.
The Prime Minister said in an interview with Radio Algeria International from Kigali that the signing of the agreement on freedom of movement of people in Africa, which was planned in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, had been postponed and justified the need to explain it more to the national public opinion.
“Even if we sign it in the future, it does not mean we are opening the door to illegal immigration,” he stated.
Mr Ouyahia also underlined in response to recent criticisms leveled by African migrants that “Algeria, and Algiers in particular, had been a haven for liberation movements and a capital for freedom fighters, and then a capital for African students, receiving annually more than 5,000 African students of various nationalities”.
“If we Maghrebians have failed to activate the mechanisms of the Maghreb Union for reasons that everyone knows, I hope that the African space will push its Maghreb counterparts to move on in order to join the African process through this vast space,” he said.
Mr Ouyahia added that the Free Trade Zone, which was launched yesterday in Kigali, carries messages to the peoples of the continent and Algeria in particular, stressing the need to take advantage of the opportunity to develop the national economy.
He noted that Algeria had participated in building up the African edifice since the liberation war. This is a quality and effective structure, highlighting “the efforts of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to build this major edifice together with his African brothers”.
The prime minister stressed that the decision to establish a free trade zone is the last stop in the economic integration of Africa.
He said that Algeria signed this agreement in the light of its frankness towards its African brothers that its speech to the world is homogeneous and that we are going through a difficult economic stage due to the collapse of world oil prices.
“ We have therefore told our African brothers that this adverse situation will force Algeria to engage into a transition spell.
Mr Ouyahia explained that “Algeria has begun to take interest in the export process towards Africa as this economic culture was almost absent in the past because of the comfortable financial situation that was witnessed by our country”.
“An Algerian-African forum for fostering economic cooperation was organized two years ago in Algeria, and Algerian businessmen are now keen to enter the African market, and these are indications of our interest in this market, and I am convinced that the Algerian side has something good to export abroad, but the problem currently experienced by the Algerian trader is the fragility of domestic production”, he underscored.
Mr Ahmed Ouyahia further predicted that “Algeria will benefit from the launch of this outstanding inter-African accord, because the Algerian economy, outside the hydrocarbons, is one of the most prominent economies in the continent, we are among the four to five first-ranked countries in the African continent in terms of industrial and agricultural production”.