Algeria: Foreign reserves down to $60bn by end of 2022

Algeria’s foreign reserves amounted to $60 billion by the end of 2022, the governor of the Bank of Algeria announced yesterday, Anadolu Agency reported.

Salah-Eddine Taleb told reporters that the available reserves would cover the country’s import needs from goods and services for two and a half years.

The North African country’s foreign reserves were reported to have peaked in 2014 when they hit $294 billion, but they then declined sharply due to the oil shock, and the government’s inability to curb a significant rise in the country’s import bill.

Algeria’s economy continuously suffers from dependence on hydrocarbon revenues, which represent about 90 percent of the country’s foreign income.

After he came to power in 2019, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pledged to diversify the country’s economy, by boosting non-oil exports and growing foreign reserves.