Algeria trade balance into red with -4.32 billion USD

Algiers – The trade balance of Algeria has set in a downward spiral because of the slowdown in oil revenues after years of surpluses comfortable, in the first four months of 2015.

The deficit of the Algerian foreign trade was 4.32 billion at the end of April, according to figures from the National Centre for Informatics and Statistics (CNIS), under Algerian customs.

Over the past two years, Algeria has seen its foreign trade surplus eroded as a result of lower oil revenues and the frenzy of imports, which surpassed the $ 60 billion last year .

In 2012, the trade balance, which is essentially based on income from oil and gas, reached $ 20.2 billion, before falling to 9.3 billion by 2013 and 4.6 billion in 2014.

In the first four months of 2015, exports of Algeria, made to 94 pc of oil, amounted to 17.73 billion dollars against 22.72 billion a year earlier, a decrease of 41 pc , according to statistics from CNIS.

Algerian experts predict that in the ideal scenario where a barrel would average $ 70 in 2015, a loss of 30 dollars per barrel, while the country may record a loss of $ 18 billion over the year or $ 50 million a day.

While they have long held over $ 60 billion, revenues from oil and gas should, in this case, down to 40 billion in 2015.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country needs a barrel of more than 110 dollars to keep its budgetary balance and safeguard its external financial position, now in a critical situation.