The Forum of Business Leaders in several advertisements displayed from August 1st, 2017 mentioned, without specifying the date of its statistical data, that it represents 2000 business leaders, that it employs 300,000 workers for a turnover of $40 billion. But apart from that, what does the Forum of Business Leaders within the Algerian economy represent ?
I have always defended the competitive market economy with a social vocation. This was included in the new constitution. at the height of the socialism period, I led the first audit of the private sector on behalf of the ruling political party between 1979 and 1980. Then, I contributed to the creation of the Algerian Development Association of the Market Economy (ADEM), duly accredited by the Ministry of the Interior and which I had the honour of to be president from 1992 to 2014.
I was accompanied by many experts, thinkers and entrepreneurs of the State and private sectors from all regions of the country. I also had the opportunity to have had a wide shot nationally and abroad, including in the United States of America and in Europe during which I explained our approach.
I always insisted on the inseparable notions of economic efficiency and fair distribution of national income by a deep social justice which is not the antinomy of efficiency. So, I have no lessons to receive from anyone with respect to the defence of the private sector as creator of wealth that needs to be developed and supported in symbiosis with the State sector, lifting the constraints of business development away from rentier pensions: bureaucracy, financial system, educational system and estate speculation.
So, for its credibility, the Forum of Business Leaders (FBL) in which I have many friends at the organisational level as well as at the level of other institutions of the State, the opposition and in all other public and private employer organizations including women entrepreneurs, must answer the following questions to enlighten all including mine opinions.
- 2000 business leaders
- What representation as related to the total private contractors in Algeria of both the real sphere and informal?
- What is the structuring by sector of activity of the 2000 companies distinguishing the turnover of local production, the internal commercial sphere and activities related to import
- What is the legal nature of the companies: limited liability company, joint-stock companies or other
- 300,000 employees
- What is the share of jobs created compared to the working population of about 12 million and about 11 million in activity.
- What is the granted payroll and its breakdown by qualification.
- How many of its members have Research & Development Departments and how much is spent on research?
- A turnover of 4,000 billion Dinars (DZD)
To test the contribution as of the $40 billion turnover, to the national development by sectors and for the period of 2006 through 2016.
- Its share in the overall figure of the country State/private sector.
- Its share as compared to SONATRACH’s sales.
- Its share of revenue as compared to the informal sphere.
- Share of the FBL’s productive investment in total public/private sectors between 2006 and 2016 with highlights on the capital employed.
- The most relevant indicators would be :
- Value creation of the FBL’s.
- The net profit of all member companies of the FBL,
- Tax and duties expenses-payment to the State by the members of the FBL.
- Participation to non-oil exports by products
- Amount of bank credit and amounts of tax exemptions received by members of the FBL.
- How many member companies have a cost accounting system and how many have initiated any strategic management?
In summary, and because of our wish to compare our fairly accurate data on these issues to those of the FBL’s. Our objective, in these great geostrategic upheavals in the region, is to focus on above all, all entrepreneurial behaviour without distinguishing the State from all private sectors which after all contribute all to the national development through a large productive debate.
NB – The National Agency for Development and investment’s president (ANDI), at a conference in May 2017 (as reported by the Algerian Press Service), there is currently in Algeria 320,000 companies many of which are SMEs, whereas it should be 800,000 to 1,000,000 businesses. Moreover, with 97 to 98% of foreign exchange earnings from oil and derivatives, according to the Office of National Statistics, the gross domestic product (GDP) in Dinars was in 2016 DZD17,179,922 with
- DZD2,034,533 for agriculture,
- DZD2,677,295 for all hydrocarbons,
- DZD972,521 for industries,
- DZD2,071,300 for all building and infrastructure development,
- DZD5,060,603 for all merchant services, and
- DZD2,997,656 for all non-market services showing the tertiarization of the economy.
What is then the contribution of the FBL to the dynamization of the productive sector?
We would recommend reading the latest on MEMO of July 31, 2017.
