The National Bureau of Statistics in Algeria revealed a decrease of 3.9 percent in GDP in the first quarter of 2020, while the unemployment rate reached 15 percent in July, after it was around 11.4 percent by the end of 2019. With the exception of the energy sector, the GDP decreased by 1.5 percent during the first three months of the year, compared to an increase of 3.6 percent during the same period in 2019.
The Algerian Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Jarad, admitted that Algeria is experiencing an unprecedented difficult economic situation resulting from a structural crisis of previous governments, in addition to the collapse of oil prices and the Coronavirus crisis.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the Algerian economy will witness a contraction of 5.2 percent this year, with the budget deficit being the highest in the region. The Algerian government prepared a plan for economic recovery, and decided at the beginning of May to cut the state management budget in half. In the supplementary finance law for the year 2020, it was approved that budget revenues will be reduced to about 38 billion euros, compared to 44 billion euros that were expected in the original budget.
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)
