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Algeria
Manufacturing
Industry was a growing factor in Algeria's economy, and in 1990
constituted 10 percent of GDP. Steel production began in El Hadjar
near Annaba in the early 1970s, when the government was emphasizing
heavy industry. A decade later, however, this plant was operating
at 20 percent of its expanded capacity of 2 million tons per year,
as a result of poor management, shortage of inputs, and heavy-handed
bureaucratic procedures. Although the Bendjedid government continued
to invest in manufacturing, it was sensitive to consumer demands
and hence amenable to allocating more funds to lighter industries
that created more jobs.
Since the 1970s, smaller manufacturers of shoes and clothes and
even smaller steel mills have been located in many parts of the
country and have created some worthwhile opportunities for private
investors. The manufacture of agricultural equipment, trucks,
and machine tools, once the exclusive domain of the National Company
for Mechanical Construction (Société Nationale de Constructions
Mécaniques), has been decentralized and used as a model for restructuring
other large national companies. The success of this experiment
encouraged the World Bank in 1990 to extend Algeria a US$99.5
million loan for restructuring other industrial companies.
Data as of December 1993
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