Algeria to launch new 5-year investment programme worth $262bn

Algeria will launch a new five-year investment programme in 2015 worth DZD 21,000 billion (US$ 262.5 billion) to build a competitive and diversified economy.
During the Council of Ministers meeting held Tuesday, President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika has instructed the Government to finalize the draft investment programme for 2015-2019, whose cost is expected to hit DZD 21,000 billion, and present it to the Council of the Ministers by the end of the year, said a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting.
The new plan is in line with the previous development and investment programme but will however break with previous methods.
During the Council of Ministers' meeting held last May, the Head of the State said that the programme will be drafted in consultation with all the economic players at the national and local levels taking into consideration the past experiences in order to improve its implementation and efficiency.
The programme will not be the fruit of the Government's work but also the result of the national and local consultations, which include all the initiatives and proposals made by the all the national players.
The Government has to take into consideration the experiences in the implementation of previous plans to prevent similar problems in the future.
Despite some shortcomings in public infrastructure projects like the additional costs and the delay in their delivery, the three plans launched since 2001 have allowed achieving better economic growth and boosting the economic and social development of the country.
Algeria carried out its development plan (the economic recovery support programme) with its own means in a context marked by the drop in oil prices and the scarcity of financial resources, while it was coming out of the black decade, which affected its material and human resources.
It is only in 2005 that the country succeeded in strengthening the development process launched in 2000, owing to the volume of investments that totalled US$ 200 billion from 2005 to 2010.
This substantial volume of investments allowed strengthening the necessary infrastructure for the economic development, through the construction of road network, the modernization of ports as well as the extension and modernization of railway network.
This dynamics was strengthened by a third plan worth US$ 286 billion for 2010-2014 in addition to special programmes for the provinces of South and High Plateaux.