ECONOMY

Algeria economy showed "a lot of resilience" in 2020

ALGIERS- The Algerian economy showed "a lot of resilience" in 2020, despite the shock of the health crisis, notably thanks to the response measures taken by the country's authorities, said on Monday the head of the Division of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Geneviève Verdier.

Speaking in a virtual press conference, after the annual consultations conducted by this international financial institution under article 4 of the Fund's statutes, Verdier underlined that this resilience is bound to the response and measures taken by the country's authorities, despite the fact that "the political and economic decision-makers had little room for manoeuvre in 2020."

While underlining that the Algerian economy has already confronted the crises of hydrocarbon prices since 2014, IMF's representative emphasized the decisions taken by the Bank of Algeria to support the companies and ensure the financial liquidity affected by the consequences of the health crisis.

"The Bank of Algeria responded well to the effects of the pandemic through measures aimed at improving the financial liquidity in banks. The ratios are of international standards. The banks' reserve levels have returned to the pre-pandemic levels," she added, while recommending the authorities to diversify the financing resources and steer towards the private sector in order to finance the investment and support growth.

"We recommended the government to diversify the financing resources of the economy because of the risks of the State's big (financial) needs," she added.

She underlined that the measures taken by the authorities to face the pandemic enabled also preserving jobs and protecting the economy as well as the companies' financial stability.

"We see that the growth will bounce back in 2021 and we welcome this growth," she said.

She also hailed the efforts made the Algerian authorities in digitization, improvement of the public finance governance and the transparency, to allow, according to her, the Algerians to have access, in real time, to the policies implemented by the State."