The Algerian official press agency (APS) is strangling! In his eyes, the World Bank “left its framework of international financial institution to turn into a tool of manipulation and propaganda”. The object of this anger is the latest report from the institution which, according to APS, predicts “an economic earthquake” to Algeria, given the “vulnerability” of its exports.
The mention of poverty in Algeria is also very badly received by APS which accuses the World Bank of being silent “the alarming, even dangerous and suicidal situation of precariousness prevailing in a neighboring country to the west of Algeria”. Understand Morocco, of course ! “Obviously there is a plot to damage the stability of the country”, does not hesitate to assert the Agency.
World Bank’s erroneous report, an attempt to destabilize Algeria
↪ https://t.co/dieccuk0ZT pic.twitter.com/gnVN9I2NmS
– ALGERIA PRESS SERVICE | وكالة الأنباء الجزائرية (@APS_Algerie) December 28, 2021
(Translation : “The erroneous report of the World Bank which tries to destabilize Algeria”)
“The choice of terminology may not be appropriate, but overall the report did not paint a black picture of the country’s economic situation and is not entirely negative.”, explains the Algerian website TSA, which is also trying to understand this reaction. So we did like our colleagues and read the report !
“In the absence of a rapid implementation of the reform agenda (the government’s action plan presented in September 2021, editor’s note), the recovery will be fragile and the fiscal and external balances will deteriorate in the medium term “, predicts the organism. And it is even an encouragement to continue along this path of reforms that the World Bank is addressing to Algeria, in particular in its desire to want to replace “a universal system of costly public subsidies to a targeted system promoting social equity.”
The term “economic earthquake” does not appear in the report which recalls what everyone recognizes, including the government. Hydrocarbons occupy too important a place in the national economy. “Algeria’s intact dependence on hydrocarbon revenues, the appearance of new variants of Covid-19 and the pace of the reform efforts announced remain the main sources of risks for the economic outlook.”
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“Due to the sharp rise in food inflation, the purchasing power of the most vulnerable segment of the population has been disproportionately affected in 2021, given the major weight of food products in their consumption basket.” Here again, the World Bank merely reminds us of the delicate context linked in particular to poor harvests.
“The multidimensional poverty indicator improved in Algeria between 2013 and 2019, reflecting progress in all its dimensions: education, health and living conditions.” But the report points to inequalities between towns and countryside and between the north and the rest of the country. Here again, the record drawn up by the World Bank is not as bad as what APS claims.
For the time being in any case, according to the Algerian media, no official reaction has been made public. So the question arises. Why such a uproar from the national press agency? “The Algerian authorities, represented by the Ministry of Finance, learned of the contents of the report even before its publication and the dissatisfaction expressed afterwards becomes incomprehensible”, TSA is surprised in conclusion. “A hysterical exit”, according to the terms of the Moroccan site 360, which is not understood either in Rabat insofar as “this report only confirms the economic realities that the Algerian authorities themselves know”.