Public works, transportation and infrastructure

A comprehensive roadmap for reforms throughout the sector is under way. The Government’s strategy is to modernise, expand transport infrastructure, and attract private foreign and local investment. Large-scale building, replacement, upgrading, and enhancement efforts are needed in Algeria, from roads and highways to railways, ports/airports, and civil engineering. The objective for commercial services is to privatise the remaining public enterprises and encourage competition in the market. For public goods or services, private sector participation will be sought under concession contracts. A substantial budget of almost EUR 2 billion has been allocated to upgrade overall transport infrastructure, which deteriorated over the ten years of terrorism. Thus, it is expected that work on the Algiers subway, launched more than 20 years ago, will be resumed, with line 1 slated for start up at the end of 2005.

The 100,000 km network of roads remains insufficient to meet the country’s development needs. Paved roads constitute 72 percent of the national network, but a quarter of today’s road network is in bad condition, much deteriorated. The Algerian road network also counts 3350 civil engineering structures, half of which must be rehabilitated. The highway network is no more than embryonic, with only a few hundred kilometres.

The planned 1216 km long Trans-Maghreb East-West motorway launched in 1987 to link Tlemcen and Annaba to the Maghreb motorway (7000 km from Nouakchott to Tripoli), is the most important in a series of large-scale public works to be completed in the coming years. In addition, a new southern bypass around the capital is expected to break ground in 2005.

As for urban development, efforts to improve traffic flow in the capital include large-scale building sites to improve access to upland areas. The city of Algiers has been equipped with seven new underpasses, three of which were built by the French company Razel at a cost of nearly EUR50 million. Soletanche-Bachy, in partnership with the Algerian company Hydrotechnique, is building an underpass in association with a 300 car underground parking lot at the Chevalley intersection. Upcoming work includes a beltway around Wadi Ouchaiah, the Annasser access road, the Oulmane Khelifa exchange and four underpasses at sensitive intersections of the capital (in the districts of Ruisseau, Chateauneuf, Hydra, and Bir Mourad Rais).

National airport infrastructure includes 53 fields, of which 12 are international class airports, eight national class airports, and 14 regional class airports. Currently, capacity remains largely under-utilised. Major initiatives include airport expansion, notably at the Algiers Airport (by the Chinese company CSCEC) as well as air navigation and air terminal equipment. Medium-term development prospects focus on airports renovation and upgrading, new initiatives to open up areas in the high plateaus and the south, and construction of a second runway at the Oran and Hassi Messaoud Airports. An international airport has been built in the region of Chlef.

The harbour and maritime sector counts 11 ports: 8 general-purpose and 3 specialised in hydrocarbons (Arzew, Skikda and Bethioua). Harbour capacity remains under-utilised. There are many opportunities for development, notably: maintenance work (dredging of the ports of Bejaia, Algiers, Arzew, Annaba and Tenes), modernisation of infrastructure to handle container traffic (extension and upgrading of terminals in Oran, Tenes, Arzew and Skikda) and creation of new harbour capacity in central coastal Algeria, directed primarily at container traffic. Public Private Partnerships (PPP) at port and airport facilities will be needed.

Equipment and public works material is also a very dynamic market. Despite a local supplier (National Public Works Materials Company, SNVI) and high tariff protection, imports are massive. The main supplier of equipment and materials for civil works is France followed by Germany and the US.

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