 THE TIME IS NOW, THE PLACE IS ALGERIA |
After almost a decade of bloody unrest, Algeria is starting to see the beginning of the end of the crisis that cost the country over 100 000 victims and weakened its economic potential worth billions of dollars in material losses. Since President Abdelaziz Bouteflika established the "civil concord" in 1999, peace and stability is slowly settling in Algeria.
| ''President Bouteflika is making statements and gestures that demonstrate a real opening, both on the internal level, and on the international level, concerning Morocco, the Middle East and our country,'' said Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine of France to the International Herald Tribune. ''It is a radically different situation. The climate has changed. A breath of freedom has returned to Algiers.''
Today, the greatest challenge for Algeria is to successfully enter the world economy, to counter its huge unemployment figures and develop investments in all economic sectors. The President's program envisions a diversification of the economic environment, the introduction of political reforms within public institutions, and the rehabilitation of justice and human rights. What Algeria needs, however, is new capital to boost its impaired economy. It is precisely in this area that foreign investment and capital can play a major role in an emerging market like Algeria's in transition towards a fully liberal economy. |
ALGERIA,
