Coronavirus: The Euro, Dollar Exchange Rate Decrease In Algiers’ Parallel Market

The foreign currencies’ exchange rate (the euro and the dollar) decreased in Algiers Port Said parallel market on Monday, due to the Coronavirus spread and the subsequent decisions to cancel travel and freeze air and sea trips and flights to abroad, at a time when money changers seize the opportunity to acquire the euro and store it for the post-virus period to resell it at a high price and take profit.

One of the money changers in Algiers Port Said Square told Echorouk that the price of selling the euro on Monday reached DZD 190, at a time before 48 hours it reached DZD 197, and the price of the dollar decreased from DZD 180 to DZD 175, and money changers expect the price of the hard currency will fall further during the coming days if the virus continues to spread and flights continue to cancel, in light of citizens’ reluctance to move abroad, freeze import and trade activities, and stop commercial activities that are related to buying and selling.

Algiers foreign currency’s black market continues to hoard large quantities of the euro, the dollar and various currencies, that are estimated by members of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National People’s Assembly and parliamentarians at $6 billion, calling on the government to intervene to recover this major financial amounts that can be used to revitalize the country’s economic situation in light of the erosion of treasury savings and the gradual depletion of what remained in the foreign exchange reserves and expectations of a black year on the trade balance during this year due to the collapse of the oil price, as the price of a barrel reached on Monday $30, which is the worst price in 5 years.

Member of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National People’s Assembly, Houari Tighrissi told Echorouk that it is time to release the draft exchange offices and the granted licenses that remained frozen without activating these offices, despite the issuance of the executive decree that is organizing the activity in 2014, noting that the circulation of $ 6 billion in the black market will contribute significantly to the destruction of the national economy, which is living in a state of stagnation and contraction in the absence of health stability today. In the past year, economic operations from production, manufacturing, import, export, investment and frozen loans to the presidential elections were completed, but today everything is frozen until conditions will stabilize and the world will get rid of the Coronavirus definitively.