Algeria

Algeria, officially the People\'s Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa with a land mass of 2.38 million km² and a 1,600km coastline on the Mediterranean between Morocco and Tunisia. It has a GDP of US$267bn and a population of 46.1 million of which just over 500,000 are in diaspora in France, which was its colonial ruler until 1947.

Political affairs in Algeria are dominated by a closed elite based in the military and the ruling party, the National Liberation Front (FLN). While there are multiple opposition parties in Parliament, elections are distorted by fraud, and electoral processes are not transparent. Other concerns include the suppression of street protests, legal restrictions on media freedom, and rampant corruption. The Hirak protest movement in 2019 put pressure on the regime to reform, but a crackdown on dissent in the following years has prevented large-scale demonstrations from continuing. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has won a second term with a landslide 84.3 percent of the vote in last week’s election, according to the Constitutional Court.

Algeria’s economy grew by 3.9 percent in the first half of 2024 and is projected to grow by 4.3 percent in 2025. The country saw a notable improvement in price stability, with inflation easing to 4.3 percent over the first nine months of 2024, reflecting the stabilization of fresh food prices, moderating import costs, and a stable exchange rate.

The economy is underpinned by deposits of fossil fuels and the manufacture of petroleum. Hydrocarbon production and export revenues are central in the country\'s economy and accounts for 19% of GDP, 93% of product exports and 38% of budget revenues between 2016 and 2021. Algeria aspires to diversify its economy to vary its sources of revenues and improve employment prospects, particularly for young people, given the country\'s demographic profile, with an unemployment rate in 2021 of 12.7% of the total labour force and 31.9% among young people (aged 15 to 24). The stock exchange, founded in 1997, has five listings.

In the past two decades, the hydrocarbon boom has allowed Algeria to make advances in economic and human development. Algeria is considered to have achieved universal primary education with a 97% primary net enrolment rate in 2015 and increasing higher education enrolment rates.


Sources: Who Owns Whom sector reports, CIA Factbook, African Development Bank, World Bank, Trading Economics, African Statistical Yearbook and IMF. ?>