President Bouteflika Enjoins Government to Ensure Rigorous Management of Public Finances

The President of the Republic, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, pointed to the imperious need to opt for rigor in the management of public funds, affirming that this rigor must be coupled by appropriate measures meant to safeguard, as much as possible, Algeria’s social-oriented principles.

“Controlling our financial and economic balances in this dire situation, we are currently going through like the rest of the oil producing countries due to the plummeting world oil prices, leaves us no other alternative but to opt for rigour in the management of public funds, the use of our natural resources and the continuation and deepening of the ongoing structural economic reforms,” stated President Bouteflika in a message read out Sunday on his behalf by Presidential Advisor Mr Mohamed Benamar Zerhouni on the occasion of the celebration of Labour Day.

President Bouteflika underscored that this rigour option “must be buttressed by adequate measures that preserve, as much as possible, our social principles notably by maintaining the living standards of those vulnerable segments of the population with low incomes.”

“The recently amended Constitution came with substantial guarantees reaffirming the State’s commitments to preserving its social options,” he added.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika further said Algeria’s huge investment efforts over the past few decades have made it possible for the country to legitimately yearn today, to foster in a short time-frame, a productive, diversified and competitive economy, while stressing the State’s firm will to encourage productive investment and boost the role of national companies in economic enhancement

“Algeria, over the past few decades, has made significant achievements, namely the transformation of our hydrocarbon as well as human resources into a production potential, both in the public and private sectors,” President Bouteflika noted.

The head of State emphasized that those achievements, made through “huge” investment efforts, have contributed to “the building of the basic infrastructures that are essential to socio-economic development.”

“However, we cannot have a productive, diversified and competitive economy if we are not keenly interested in the promotion and development of the national production,” he said.

“Our aspiration will be really met through the promotion of exports overseas in addition to hydrocarbons, and the shoring up of our economic development”, the head of state affirmed in his message.

“We are confronted today with an almost total dependence on hydrocarbon revenues, along with a hike in trading imports whose costs have skyrocketed, which has compelled us to “dip” into our foreign exchange reserves,” the President of the Republic further pointed out.

 “That’s why we see reduction, over the past months, of the volume of Algeria’s imports as a prerequisite”, he underlined to this effect.

“The upgrading of the national economy requires a leap forward for our national companies so as to win back the national market,” President Bouteflika asserted.