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Faced with a significant deficit of affordable housing in urban centres, all eyes are on the nation’s housing projects and the authorities’ ability to deliver more than 1.6m housing units by 2019 in spite of the low oil price environment which has had a significant impact on government revenues and budgets. Nevertheless, the real estate sector offers multiple investment opportunities as the country’s retail and tourism sectors continue to develop. Private developers can also play a vital role in helping to meet the continued demand for low-income, quality housing. This chapter contains an interview with Boudjema Talai, Minister of Transport and Public Works.

The largest country in Africa, Algeria remains mainly underexplored as regards non-hydrocarbons mineral deposits, pointing to major potential opportunities in the mining sector. The authorities are keen to develop the industry, not only in order to boost minerals output itself, but also to provide raw materials for a range of emerging industries. The new mining law and the incentives it contains should help to attract additional interest, while new rail connections should ease logistics connections for miners’ output. This chapter contains interviews with Ali Boumediene, CEO, Bomare; and Reda Hechelaf, CEO, SOPI.

While it has grown more than five-fold since the 1990s, Algeria’s insurance industry remains small relative to the size of the economy, with low penetration and density ratios. The sector sees more than half of its profits from automotive coverage, though the life segment has grown swiftly in recent years. Improvements to automotive claims processing and determined efforts to resolve the claims backlog should help rehabilitate the insurance sector’s image somewhat in 2017, and relieve it of a long-standing financial burden. This will allow insurers to focus on expanding promising assistance and SME-tailored products, as well as products across the life segment. This chapter contains interviews with Mohamed Loukal, Governor, Bank of Algeria; Adnan Ahmed Yousif, President and CEO, Al Baraka Banking Group; Yazid Benmouhoub, General Manager, Algiers Stock Market; Mohammed Khelfaoui, Managing Director, Tell Markets; and Mokhtar Naouri, CEO, CASH Insurance.

As Algeria attempts to curb the impact of the global downturn in oil prices and sustain economic growth, boosting hydrocarbons production to make up for lower prices and keep pace with rising domestic demand is a priority. Making the market attractive to foreign investors is fundamental to raising production, as are measures to ensure sustainable consumption of energy. With two-thirds of the territory still unexplored and the EU export market next door, there is still plenty of scope to expand both production and revenues even amidst the current low price environment. This chapter contains a viewpoint from Noureddine Boutarfa, Minister of Energy; and interviews with Akli Brihi, Maghreb Cluster President, Schneider Electric; and Amine Mazouzi, CEO, Sonatrach.

The largest economy in the Maghreb, Algeria is also the region’s wealthiest country in terms of purchasing power parity-adjusted per capita. Hydrocarbons are the mainstay of economic activity; however, amid slowing production and exports, as well as the sharp drop in oil prices since mid-2014, the government is taking a range of measures to develop other sectors, with a particular focus on industry, agriculture and tourism. These should bolster diversification efforts that will have long-term benefits, in particular given anticipated falls in oil and gas production over the coming decades, and the long-term prospects are positive. This chapter contains interviews with Ali Haddad, President, Forum des Chefs d’Entreprise; Zied Ladhari, Tunisian Minister of Industry; and Jaime García-Legaz, Former Secretary of State for Trade.