The ministry of Agriculture and Rural development has decided to support full-scale national industrial tomato production, by consolidating production units in the East of Algeria, which will allow reaching a production of 60.000 tons of tomatoes concentrates instead of 50% recorded presently.

• The move comes after a large number of Algerian industrialists expressed fears about  their production units’ closure, because of the ever-increasing imported production  from Turkey and China mainly, as the Algeria’s import bill for  this fundamental product exceeds more than 100 million U.S dollars annually.
• The price of industrial tomatoes on the international market has jumped from 1200 U.S. dollars after it was previously set at about 90 dollars. But the surging price on the world market encourages foreigners to export significant quantities to Algeria litterally swamping  the national market, and thereby undermining the Algerian foodstuffs industry.
• The national production reached about 80% of domestic needs in 2002.