Hard Currency Declines In The Parallel Market, The Euro Drops To Weakest Level

Hard currency prices decreased on the 4th day of Eid compared to the past months, as the purchase price approached 20.000 dinars per hundred-euro note, although it reached 21.000 dinars two months ago in Casanova parallel market.

A currency dealer in the Casanova market in the city centre of Constantine told Echorouk that currency dealers since they heard about the opening of the borders or airspace, would mean the arrival of thousands of immigrants to the homeland after an absence of one year and three months, and surely they will be loaded with millions of the European currency, which made them anticipate that supply overcame demand because the Algerian movement abroad is still postponed, especially for tourism, whether with neighbours or in Europe and the sale price, on Sunday, in the eastern cities of the country, including Constantine, Annaba and Tebessa, reached 10,500 DZD per 100 euros, the lowest figure in nearly six months, and the price of the Tunisian dinar in the border states fell below 500 Algerian dinars for the first time in years.

“Currency trade in the parallel market has stagnated greatly, as many private buyers appeared at the beginning of the pandemic, and they used to take what they found in the market, so the price flared up, and then they retreated as the closure continued due to the pandemic, and sellers also entered into a cycle of suspicion and anxiety between hope and frustration at other times, observers of the situation in France, in particular, said this decline occurred because 90% of the hard currency in Algiers square parallel market and other markets are sourced from the Algerian community residing in France”, he added.

The Algerian community organizations abroad, and in France in particular, expressed their joy at the imminent opening of the borders, which were closed since March 2020, considering the statement of the Minister of Health, Population and Hospital Reform, Abderrahmane Ben Bouzid, at the end of the last month of Ramadan with a dose of hope for the return of migrants and in large numbers, despite the recommendations proposed by the Scientific Committee to follow up the spread of the Covid19 pandemic, which are the same that were proposed by the community in previous periods to allow immigrants to return to the homeland.

As for the prospects for the hard currency market, currency dealers think that this is related to the number of arrivals from the Algerian community and also the sums of money that they will pour into the parallel currency market and the extent of customer demand without forgetting the global pandemic curve, because they were in the last full-year period concentrated in buying and hoarding money in banks and homes, which may mean a lack of purchase movement or hesitation, even if the prices fell below 20.000 dinars per 100 euros, which is the possibility that came with the first aircraft carrying immigrants to the airports of various Algerian cities.