Disbursement Of 750 Euros Via International Credit Card

The Bank of Algeria is in the process of finalizing the terms and conditions for the disbursement of the travel grant, which will be sent to all banks accredited in Algeria, to clarify the mechanisms by which the 750 Euro grant will be disbursed, as the latter is expected to be ready by next March at the latest.

This comes at a time when deputies of the National People’s Assembly (APN) have submitted a proposal to inject this grant directly into the accounts of those concerned who have bank accounts in hard currency and use it with international credit cards such as VisaCard, MasterCard and others, to reduce time and effort, reduce queues at airports, ports and border crossings, encourage the digitization of banks and financial transactions and follow up on how this grant is disbursed more accurately.

In this context, Deputy Speaker of the National People’s Assembly Mr. Zouheir Nasseri told “Echorouk” that the new Minister of Finance, Abdelkrim Boualzerd, in coordination with the Governor of the Central Bank, is working hard to facilitate the disbursement of the travel grant to its beneficiaries, which is part of the commitments of the second electoral term of President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

The file is currently on the table of the acting governor of the Bank of Algeria, who is expected to issue soon a directive to banks specifying the mechanism that will allow citizens to benefit from this grant, he said, adding that as deputy speaker of the People’s National Assembly, he and other experts proposed to the governor of the Bank of Algeria to facilitate the procedures for accessing this grant, by pouring it directly into the accounts of those concerned in hard currency and enabling its direct disbursement through international credit cards.

This is to avoid pressure on airports, land crossings and ports for beneficiaries, to prevent the formation of long queues for travelers, and to encourage citizens to create international credit cards, which is part of the digitization advocated by the country’s highest authorities, said Mr. Nasseri.

The latter emphasizes that this step will facilitate the withdrawal of the grant, reduce the time and procedures, shorten the effort and eliminate the limited currency, but it must be accompanied by other measures, such as expanding the spread of exchange offices across the country and in all states, airports and ports.

For his part, Abdelkader Beriche, member of the Economic Affairs, Trade and Planning Committee of the National People’s Assembly, believes that the implementation of the tourist grant, according to the data obtained from the Bank of Algeria, will be preceded by a directive that will soon be sent to banks detailing how to implement the decision of President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune to raise the tourist grant to 750 euros for travelers, $1,000 for pilgrims and 300 euros for children.

In a statement to ”Echorouk”, Mr. Beriche said that the directive should set strict conditions to prevent this amount from becoming a tool for “gambling” by some parties that deliberately extract the amount to transfer it to the black market, noting that this grant in that case may cost the authorities between 5 and 7 billion dollars annually, which is a huge figure.

Bresh stressed the importance of the decision to authorize the grant followed by the opening of a large number of exchange offices across border states and all regions, not only at the port of Algiers or areas with airports.

He underlined that the Bank of Algeria is the main administrator of the grant file, which is currently managed by the acting governor of the bank, stressing the importance of expediting the installation of the new governor to speed up all the procedures related to the grant and also to move the files on the Bank of Algeria’s table, which are several, most importantly the opening and approval of exchange offices and allowing citizens traveling abroad to withdraw the new grant ordered by President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

During the meeting of ministers on December 8, chaired by President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune, it was decided to raise the tourism and pilgrimage grants to 750 euros for adults once a year and 300 euros for minors once a year, and to raise the pilgrimage grant to 1,000 dollars.