Algeria Import Requests by Tiny Firms Hit US$130bn

ALGERIA · ECONOMY

Algeria import requests filed by about 4,000 very small companies came to US$130 billion for the second half of 2026, and the Ministry of Foreign Trade has opened an inquiry into them. The sum is close to three times what the country actually imported in a full year.

How Algeria import requests are supposed to work

Importers file through a digital platform that manages the programme prévisionnel d’importation, the forward import programme known by its French initials PPI. The system was designed to give the state advance sight of the foreign currency the economy will need.

Each operator declares what it intends to bring in over the coming half-year. Approval is what unlocks access to the hard currency that pays for the goods.

The platform was recently widened to include micro-enterprises. That extension is exactly where the anomaly appeared.

The arithmetic that stopped the ministry

The ministry published the distribution rather than a single total, and the breakdown is what makes the case. Companies with no employees at all sought US$484.58 million.

Single-employee firms asked for US$21.84 billion. Two-employee firms asked for US$76.88 billion, which on its own is more than a year and a half of national imports.

The ministry’s stated reason for opening the inquiry was the absence of any linear progression between declared workforce and requested volume. In plainer terms, the numbers do not describe businesses that could physically handle the goods.

Why import files are worth faking

In an economy with managed foreign exchange, an import licence is not merely permission to buy. It is an entitlement to dollars at the official rate.

Where a parallel rate exists, the gap between the two is a profit in itself. That is the oldest incentive in exchange-control economies, and it does not require the goods ever to arrive.

Over-invoicing is the other classic route. A licence sized far beyond real trade leaves room to move value out of the country under cover of a commercial transaction.

What Algiers has been trying to fix

Successive governments have worked to cut the import bill and rebuild domestic manufacturing, with hydrocarbons still supplying the bulk of export earnings. Import controls have been the main instrument.

The digital PPI platform was meant to make the process cleaner and faster than the discretionary licensing it replaced. Transparency, though, also makes anomalies visible.

That is the quiet good news in this episode. The ministry found the pattern because the data sat in one place.

What an inquiry can realistically do

The first step is verification. Cross-checking declared payrolls against social security records and tax filings should thin the list quickly.

Refusals cost the state nothing, and the operators concerned have little standing to complain. Prosecutions are harder, since intent has to be proved.

The deterrent value may matter more than the caseload. A public breakdown of who asked for what is itself a warning.

The wider picture on Algerian trade

Hydrocarbons still provide the overwhelming share of Algeria’s export earnings, which leaves the import bill exposed to the gas price. Managing that bill has been the central economic task for a decade.

Diversification has moved slowly but visibly. Phosphate contracts awarded in August to Saipem and CHEC are part of the same effort to build export lines that are not gas.

None of that changes the immediate arithmetic. Until the country earns more foreign currency, the state will keep rationing the currency it has.

The market read

For investors the signal is mixed. A screening system that catches an implausible claim is working, but the volume of implausible claims says something about the incentives underneath it.

Currency policy is the root. As long as access to official dollars is worth more than the goods themselves, applications will keep arriving from firms with no warehouses.

Algeria’s external accounts remain cushioned by gas revenue. That cushion is what has allowed the controls to persist.

What to watch next

Watch for the number of PPI files actually rejected, and whether the ministry names sectors rather than individual firms.

Watch too for any move on the exchange rate regime. That, rather than an inquiry, is what would remove the incentive.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief