APS : Thursday, 13 September 2018
WASHINGTON- Algeria and the United States agreed to launch talks on a closer commercial partnership aiming at conquering markets in Africa, said Commerce Minister Said Djellab.
On the sidelines of the Algerian week in Washington, Djellab told APS that he had held two working meetings with US Commerce Department officials and executives of the US Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) to discuss this project.
During those preliminary talks, the US party showed its readiness to reinforce the bilateral commercial relations with the possibility to establish a deep partnership, providing for the creation of a commercial hub to win markets in Africa, said the minister.
In a first step, the Commerce Department and the powerful American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) have decided to send to Algiers many missions of economic operators to explore the national production tool and also set an inventory of the Algerian products which are likely to be marketed in the U.S.
The minister said that “Algeria remains an important base in Africa. The Americans will consider partnership possibilities in production sectors for export to the African countries.
Algeria has an economic regional potential, and the Americans have understood this geostrategic position in terms of commerce and partnership.”
During those meetings, Djellab said that he had given an overview of the national production, outlining the efforts conducted for the logistics and infrastructure reconstruction.
With the United States “we are creating trade facilitation instruments,” he said as an answer to a question on the state of the Algerian-U.S. negotiations concerning the bilateral agreement related to the WTO membership access
“We are in a phase of trade facilitation,” he said.
During these meetings with US officials, the minister broached emergency measures to reframe foreign trade in the wake of the fall in oil prices.
“I explained the origin (of this reform), especially the crisis we experienced after the fall in oil prices and the emergency measures taken to deal with it,” he said.
The minister argued that “Algeria cannot be considered a consumer market, depending on fluctuations in oil prices”.
“It is not in the interests of our partners that we become insolvent,” concluded the minister.
