Algeria’s foreign reserve declines by $15bn in 11 months

Algeria’s foreign currency reserves shrunk $15 billion or 15.6 per cent during the past 11 months due to the declining oil prices, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Foreign reserves retreated from $97.33 billion by the end of December 2017 to $82.12 billion by the end of November 2018.

Previous forecasts by the Central Bank expected reserves to retreat to $79.7 billion in 2019 and to $76.2 billion in 2020.

Algeria’s reserves started to retreat since the second half of 2014 due to the drop in oil prices.

Foreign reserves reached their peak in 2014 hitting $194 billion.

For years, Algeria has been fighting to decrease its import bill in order to stop the reduction of foreign currency reserves by putting restrictions on imports. This however has not fixed the situation and the country has sunk deeper into economic woes.

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