“Algeria will eliminate poverty in 2015,” says minister

Agriculture ministers in the Group 5+5 Wednesday agreed on creating a security food observatory in the end of their first meeting held in the capital in presence of ministers from Algeria, France, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania.

Algerian agriculture minister Abdelouahab Nouri said the observatory is meant to establish surveillance mechanisms to ensure essential products stability and end serious consequences of prices instability on poor people.

He also stressed the necessity of exchanging information, technical and technological knowledge in agricultural field between the Group 5+5 countries and ensuring food security for 300 million peoples living in 10 countries in the western region of the Mediterranean Sea.

He believes that having control over food prices is the only solution to have control over imports bill. “The government should fight all kinds of speculation in food products.

The minister also said Algeria achieved the first goal of the Millennium Development Goals.

 Secretary General of the Arab Maghreb’s Union Lahbib Boulaaras warned against serious consequences on food security and social stability.

He called for creating a long-term joint agricultural Maghrebin market, establishing a common plan to produce essential agricultural products and launching a joint Maghrebin cooperation to fight desertification.