 
Country profile
Business conditions are slowly improving in Algeria, a country balanced on a knife-edge. Radical Islamic militants continue to draw support while moderate politicians maintain tight control of the government. The regime has yet to formulate a coherent response to the large popular protests that have spread from the Berber-dominated Kabyle region to the capital, Algiers. And relations between the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and the military elite remain strained.
Despite political strife, the business environment has improved vastly since the civil war of the 1990s. Much of the improvement stems from higher earnings from hydrocarbon exports, which are expected to keep the current-account and financing balances in surplus for some time. The scope for e-business in Algeria remains small, however. Poor infrastructure, low PC penetration and limited Internet access hamper e-commerce, and opportunities are limited mainly to the B2B market.
A high degree of consensus prevails about the need to maintain a liberal market economy and prudent fiscal and monetary policy. Differences in economic policy tend to be a matter of degree rather than substance, although the left is still inclined towards state intervention at a microeconomic level.
Key points
- E-business marketplace: E-commerce has yet to catch on in Algeria, and the country suffers from poor infrastructure and low connectivity.
- Company strategies: Internet users in Algeria use the web more for news services and information-gathering than for transactions.
- Infrastructure and Internet penetration: With fixed-line penetration at less than 5% and mobile penetration at a dismal 0.2%, the country’s telecoms sector remains vastly underdeveloped.
- Law and taxation: The government is reviewing e-commerce issues but has yet to enact legislation concerning the Internet.
Connectivity statistics
Population (2001): 31.7m
Internet users (1999): 18,000
Stock of PCs per 1,000 people (1999): 5
Number of ISPs (2000): 2
Main telephone lines (2001): 1.47m
Number of moble subscribers (2000): 18, 000
Source: EIU CountryIndicators.
Popular sites
Country information
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A website devoted to Algerian jokes, music, proverbs and pictures of the capital, Algiers, is one of the most popular sites in Algeria (http://www.bahdja.com).
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