Exchange rate soars in Algeria

Hard currency prices have soared up for 3 days in the black market as 100 Euro/DZ rate Friday exceeded 16,000 DZ while $100/DZ rate almost reached 13,000 DZ.

Hard currency sellers in Port Said area in Algiers told Echorouk this increase is unprecedented.

Earlier on Monday, the Algiers Bank commissioner Mohamed Laksassi warned the government against starting consuming change reserves and Incomes Regulation Fund will not be able to bear the “shock” for a long time.        

Car dealers expect that car prices would go up by 30 or 40 percent as from January.

Economist Malek Serrai believes that exchange rate in the black market will increase more as the government plans to reduce unnecessary imports in industry, agriculture and consumption.

“Banks will reduce their support for importers who will go, in their turn, to the black market to ask for hard currency. This will increase the exchange rate. There are fears amid industrials and importers,” he told Echorouk on the phone on Friday.

He added that a price crisis will be triggered in consumption products. “Importing has become more expensive. As the dinar falls, we will experience a crisis in consumption products price.”