APS : Thursday, 07 September 2017
ALGIERS-Algeria is willing to conduct some of the feasibility studies of the projects included in Chad’s National Development Programme (PND), affirmed Thursday in Paris Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel.
“Algeria is strongly committed to the completion of these projects, which will have a direct impact on Chad’s opening and its development. It is also willing to conduct out some feasibility studies of projects included in the next five-year PND,” said the minister, who represents President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in a speech he delivered at the Paris Round Table on financing Chad’s 2017-2021 PND.
The meeting, which takes place under the patronage of Chad President Idriss Deby Itno, in the presence of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, aims to mobilize Chad’s partners to implement structuring projects under the PND, to diversify Chad’s economy and allow it achieve growth in various structures.
Messahel said “this solidarity action is added to the support provided by Algeria to Chad since more than one decade in terms of students’ training, with a view to contributing to the development of the human resources this brotherly country does need.”
“Algeria grants one hundred scholarships annually to Chadian nationals so that they receive training in Algeria in various fields,” affirmed Messahel, stressing that Algeria is ready “to pursue this effort and to further strengthen it according to Chad’s needs and Algeria’s capacities in this field.”
The Algerian FM stated that Algeria “considers socioeconomic development as the basis of security and stability. It is also the most efficient mean to combat extremist violence and illegal immigration, which have taken a singular dimension in the recent years.”
“Consequently, such a development is at the heart of the goals set by national recovery plans as is the case today in Chad through the PND, and under an international solidarity taking the path of a win-win partnership.”
For Messahel, this policy “should be strengthened a regional integration effort aiming at consolidating supranational functional synergies.”
“In order to better exploit this asset, whose role has been highlighted by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), we recommend the establishment of advantageous partnership types for the completion of regional development projects, called structuring, like the Trans-Sahara Highway, the Algiers-Lagos gas pipeline and the Trans-Sahara Optic Fibre Backbone.”
These projects, designed to promote exchanges and integration between countries of the region, “are of strategic importance given their impact on exploitation of potentialities in common cross-border areas,” he said.
