Compelled to change over €1,000 Euros, Immigrants set to curtail their travels to Algeria!

Article 75A of the 2016 Finance Act has triggered off a bitter controversy within our national community members settled abroad.

Indeed, this contentious article is for them inappropriate as it compels them to declare to the customs the sum in hard currency of more than 1,000 Euros and make the exchange at the official rate at the banks. This coercive measure has been badly received by the Algerian expatriates who are now intent on limiting henceforward their travels to Algeria.

Algerian emigrants living overseas argue they are discriminated against in comparison with the Tunisians and Moroccans, stressing that the move is not in the best interest of Algeria, which is so much in need of hard currencies with the dwindling of the country’s foreign exchange reserves owing to this year’s scathing oil price slump.

According to them, this vexed article will certainly scale down the frequency of travels to Algeria by tourists, both national and foreign ones, by not allowing them to access the country’s borders with only 1000 Euros or the equivalent in other currencies.

As a matter of fact, the chief aim pursued by the Government is to lessen the scope of the sprawling informal currency exchange market, which undermines the national economy but this restrictive step taken by the authorities concerned has stoked the discontent of Algerian emigrants residing abroad.

The bone of contention now the order of the day for the Algerian Diaspora members willing to travel to Algeria, is their inability not to change their Euros, over and above the amount authorized by the informal market, where the black exchange rate is one and half times higher than that set by the banks.

Moreover, they were also surprised to learn that the Consular card, which has been free of charge so far, will now cost them € 35 Euros and € 60 Euros for the issuing of passports.