Government Approved 7 Procedures to Prevent Foreign Currency Bleeding

Algerian government approved seven measures to rearrange the foreign trade sector and prevent the drain of hard currency abroad by the creation of the Supreme Council for Exporters and a Supreme Council for Import Control, with an accurate economic census to know the size and stock of national products and estimate the market needs of various commodities, in addition to reviewing the customs law that will be presented to the Council of Ministers before the end of the current year.

The authorities also adopted a new approach to combat the phenomenon of inflating bills, as the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, revealed, in an interview with the national press broadcast on Saturday evening, measures to demand the bill inflators to return the looted funds, and also confirmed that the phenomenon has witnessed a decline in the recent period thanks to the measures taken by the government to surround it.

This statement was preceded by the President of the Republic presiding over a meeting of the Supreme Committee for Supervision of Customs Declarations last week, a meeting, according to sources from the trade sector, is technical and aimed at restricting the process of inflating invoices, in addition to the speeding arrangements to digitize the financial sector through all its institutions and bodies, to ensure transparency of transactions and prevent any vulnerability that would allow any bypass that causes billing manipulation.

Ali Bey Nasri, the foreign trade advisor, confirmed in a statement to Echorouk that the recent measures taken by the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, regarding the creation of a higher council for exporters and another council for import control, with a meeting with the Higher Committee for Customs Declarations, suggest a real will to restore arranging and regulating the foreign trade sector with the involvement of all actors and professionals.

Nasri considered these steps as initiatives that deserve appreciation and encouragement, especially since the Import Control Council, for example, includes all concerned sectors, and is not limited to representatives of the Ministry of Commerce, and this is to control all materials and products in the market and estimate any supply deficit in case of noticement a reporting must be done at the level of the council or ministry.

The measure also aims, according to the spokesman, to combat bill inflation, a phenomenon that the President of the Republic admitted has always exhausted the national economy and previously “devoured” a third of the import bill, while this inflation decreased during the last period to 450 million dollars. Nasri asserted that “opening the eyes of the authorities to inflated bills is a positive point, and we as professionals have several proposals to eliminate this phenomenon once and for all”.

The Foreign Trade Adviser believes that the creation of the Import Control Council will contribute to the restriction of invoice inflators. However, he suggested, in a related context, the conclusion of agreements between Algerian customs and the customs of importing countries, led by China, to exchange price tables for imported materials, to shorten the time spent in investigating the reference prices and also until the conformity is done before the goods are shipped and the import funds are transferred in hard currency, which will have impressive results on the ground, and will further restrict those involved in this type of economic crime.

Ali Bey Nasri demanded the need to expedite the completion of the inventory, statistics and documentation of all local products in all sectors, as it is necessary before imposing any measure related to controlling foreign trade or protecting the national product, to have accurate knowledge of what the Algerians produce today, what the market needs, and the materials that are in short supply or which situation requires the import of products.

In a related context, the speaker called for the necessity of consulting professional associations in all steps related to rearranging the foreign trade sector, stressing that the Chamber of Commerce and Industry would be the best representative of the dealer active in the field of export or import.