In these vast arid plains where no trees grow, there are endless rows of greenhouses reminiscent of the plastic sea of Almeria, in southern Spain, where three million tn of fruits and vegetables are produced every year.

Here, under the greenhouses of Biskra, located 400km south of Algiers, thousands of tn of tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, peppers and melons are grown and end up on Algerian plates.

5,500 exporters

For the past 15 years, this semi-desert region has supplied more than 40% of the country’s agricultural production for a turnover of more than €3bn. Some entrepreneurs who invest massively in these greenhouses either already export their products to Europe and the Middle East or hope to get their products into these markets. A province with an agricultural vocation, Biskra is currently home to 480 exporters. The country has 5,500 exporters across all sectors.

This is the case for the Tahraoui family, whose group, founded in 1974, specialises in public works, medicine and hydraulics, and exploits 400 hectares of market garden crops. Every day, several tn of vegetables, some of which are destined for export, come out of the Tahraoui greenhouses.

Beans are sold in Canada, tomatoes and melons in France and Spain, and peppers in Dubai. The Tahraoui brothers, one of whom died suddenly in the summer of 2021, are now setting their sights on Ukraine, Russia, China and Côte d’Ivoire. “Oil is not eternal, the earth is,” Mohamed Tahraoui told us two years before he died.

Exporting has become the watchword of the Algerian authorities, who have taken drastic measures over the past three years to first reduce the import bill and then boost exports.

According to official statistics, Algeria’s imports for the year 2022 amounted to $38.7bn. During that same year, total exports reached $56.5bn (of which 49.5bn were hydrocarbons). This increase is mainly due to the surge in oil prices because of the war in Ukraine. Year in, and year out, more than 90% of the country’s foreign currency income comes from oil revenues. Hence the urgent need to diversify exports to reduce dependence on hydrocarbons and their ever-fluctuating prices.

Betting big on agriculture

In January 2023, President Tebboune announced that non-hydrocarbon exports had increased from $1.7bn in 2019 to $7bn in 2022. The country’s new objective is to reach the $10bn mark. Is that mission impossible? Many operators feel it can be achieved and believe that one of the first sources of growth in exports is the food industry, even though this sector does not currently exceed $1.5bn of goods sold abroad.

The Souakri brothers, who run the eponymous group, believe that agriculture is a way to bring in foreign currency. Since independence, the family has owned a small farm in the Mitidja, once considered the granary of Europe.

Today, the two brothers are launching a gigantic tomato growing project on a 1,000-hectare plot near Touggourt, situated 600km southwest of the capital. The entire production will be destined for export.

In the country, making the desert bloom is not a pipe dream. This is the ambition of billionaire Djilali Mehri, who in 2008 launched a 1,000-hectare tourist complex in El Oued, which is nicknamed the city of a thousand domes and located 650km southeast of Algiers.

Alongside luxury villas, the businessman runs a large agricultural estate with 35,000 date palms and 25,000 olive trees, almost all of whose production is exported to the four corners of the world.

Although the quantities of Algerian dates and olive oil exported are negligible, they could become highly profitable investments if company managers invest massively in this sector. In 2021, Algeria exported 600,000 litres of olive oil to 19 countries for $2m. This figure could increase to $5m by 2024. “We have green gold on our land. We can develop it just as well as the black gold that comes out of the bowels of the desert,” says Hamid Kiriad, whose extra virgin oil from Kabylia has won several international awards, notably in France and Greece.

Steel and cement, concrete sectors

The projects, however, are not limited to agricultural production, as cement also seems particularly promising. At the beginning of the 2000s, there was so much tension in this sector that, due to the large housing construction programmes underway, the country had to import several hundred million dollars worth of this strategic product.

The situation continued, as Algeria was still importing cement in 2016. Today, there is so much surplus local production that Algerian cement is exported all over the world and the country makes $500m per year.

“The prices of Algerian cement and steel are the most competitive in the world,” says a former industry minister. The production of the Biskra plant, managed in partnership with the Souakri group and Lafarge Holcim, is thus sent to sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. “We hope to achieve an export turnover of €100m,” says Abdenour Souakri, the group’s boss.

The steel sector is doing extremely well. Local investments and partnerships with foreign companies, notably Turkish, have doubled iron and steel production to reach $2bn in exports. However, one economic operator warns against being overly enthusiastic about these steel and cement exports. “The export surplus is due to the decline of the local market that consumed these products. If construction activities were to pick up again, as they did in the 2010s, with the major structural projects, Algeria would hardly be able to export cement and steel.”

Cevital and Rebrab in force

To make matters worse, good news came from Cevital, the country’s leading private agribusiness group, at the end of 2022. Blocked for many years, its oil production plant in Bejaia is expected to start operating during the second quarter of 2023. This project, which required an investment of €150m, aims to generate $2.2bn in turnover, including $750m in exports.

The Rebrab family’s conglomerate is also one of the leading local sugar producers for the Algerian and foreign markets. Until a temporary export ban was imposed in December 2022, Cevital was exporting 300,000 tn of sugar to Tunisia and other African countries, generating a turnover of $300m.

“Bureaucratic and banking obstacles must be removed to boost Algerian exports,” says a former minister. “But the main priority remains to reduce the import bill and fight against overpricing, which allowed former oligarchs to amass fortunes in Algeria and abroad. Keeping imports down to $35bn a year will already be a great victory given that we know that they peaked at almost $60bn 10 years ago.”