Government Gears Up For “Bidding Farewell To Last Oil Barrel” On June 5th

The tripartite meeting in its 18th edition is scheduled for next June 5th at the El Mithak Residence in upper Algiers in the presence of Government members headed by the Prime Minister Sellal as well as representatives of the Employers’ Confederation and the UGTA Trade Union.

The upcoming tripartite will address several topical files, including the evolution of the labour sector and retirement pensions and with on prime focus the new economic model that will be officially announced and expounded at the meeting.

The endeavour as decided by the head of state, Abdellaziz Bouteflika, will serve as a springboard for the gradual diversification of the national economy by progressively steering away from the heavy dependency of the country on hydrocarbons for its external revenues.

This get-together will set the government to “bid farewell to the last barrel of oil”, which reached yesterday the highest price on the world market after months of tumbling by achieving $ 50 dollars a barrel.

The President of the Algerian Confederation of Employers, Mr Boualem Marakchi, said in a statement to “Echorouk” that the June 5th tripartite meeting would be an opportunity for the Government to “bid farewell to last barrel of oil”, by revealing on the occasion a brand-new economic model to be duly backed by all Algerians in order to help prop up the national economy by ensuring its salutary diversification away from the long-running oil and gas dependency in the years to come.

He also indicated that the participants in the next tripartite meeting would also tackle matters related to the evolution of the labour sector and the situation of the retirees’ pensions, while stressing that the rumoured increases in salaries for the benefit of workers won’t be the order of the day given the country’s current financial and economic woes.

“The next tripartite meeting will be an opportunity for consultation on the strengthening of current momentum to boost the country’s economic development, create jobs and curb unemployment”, the President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika said in a message sent on the occasion of World Labour Day celebration early this month.

President Bouteflika underlined to this effectthat “the forthcoming tripartite meeting will be an opportunity to continue consultation on the strengthening of momentum, started few years ago, to boost economic development, create jobs, reducing unemployment rate, especially among university graduates and improve the national training system in order to adapt it to the requirements of the labour market.”

The Head of State noted that Algeria has reached a stage requiring further mobilization and consultation between the economic players, companies and economic administrations, particularly workers and their trade-union leaderships on the economic priorities.”

“Joining our efforts to improve competitiveness, workers’ efficiency and investment climate, will allow speeding up the country’s economic development,” he added.