Prior to this year’s crisis, foreign exchange reserves had fallen drastically from $180 billion in 2014 to close to $62 billion at the end of 2019. Confronted with a looming financial crisis and broader economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the president said Algeria would prefer to borrow from its own citizens, rather than the IMF or the World Bank. “Accumulating debt harms national sovereignty,” said Tebboune in a recent meeting with Algerian media broadcast. “In dealing with the coronavirus crisis, our strength was that we weren’t in debt”, he added. The country would also not resort to printing currency, the president said, as he thinks doing so could ultimately lead to skyrocketing inflation.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 08, 2020 11:03 UTC