Algeria plans to increase state spending by 16 percent in 2015, pushing up its deficit to 22 percent of gross domestic product, despite declining energy earnings, according to a draft budget obtained by Reuters.<\/p>\n
Algeria, a member of OPEC, relies on oil and gas exports to finance government development and social programmes. But that revenue has been declining in recent years.<\/p>\n
The draft forecasts 2015 economic growth at 3.42 percent, down from the 4.5 percent projected for this year. Inflation is expected to reach 3 percent, slightly lower than the 3.5 percent forecast for 2014.<\/p>\n
Algeria has financed its deficit with cash from oil and gas sales, which account for about 97 percent of total exports.<\/p>\n
The draft, based on a world oil price of $100 per barrel, expects the volume of energy exports to increase by 3.86 percent next year. It did not provide figures.<\/p>\n
The north African country had projected a 3.5 percent increase in oil and gas exports for this year. However, official figures showed overall energy sales declined by 9 percent in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
The draft budget sets 2015 spending at 8,858 billion dinars ($112 billion) Part of that will go to boost growth in sectors including industry, agriculture and energy. Part will be spent on subsidies for cereals, fuel, electricity, gas and housing.<\/p>\n
Algeria has accumulated foreign-currency reserves of about $200 billion, and it has been spending heavily on social programmes to avert the kind of uprisings that have hit its neighbours.<\/p>\n
The draft is due to be discussed and approved later on Tuesday at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. It will be submitted next month for final approval by parliament, where parties allied to Bouteflika have an overwhelming majority.<\/p>\n
($1= 79 dinars)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Algeria plans to increase state spending by 16 percent in 2015, pushing up its deficit to 22 percent of gross domestic product, despite declining energy earnings, according to a draft budget obtained by Reuters. Algeria, a member of OPEC, relies on oil and gas exports to finance government development and social programmes. But that revenue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053643,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15978.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}