In Beijing, the Algerian president seeks support for his country's membership of the Brics

After Russia in mid-June, where he obtained Moscow’s support for his country’s membership of the BRICS, the Algerian president is continuing his diplomatic offensive in China, where he began a five-day visit on Monday July 17. Abdelmadjid Tebboune is counting on this sizeable support to have his candidacy accepted for the club bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa at the summit to be held in August in Johannesburg.

This initiative, which still seems far from succeeding – rumors, relayed with assiduity by the press of the Moroccan rival, are part of the opposition of India –, is part of the desire to impose on the international scene the image of a “new Algeria”. Candidate for a second term, Abdelmadjid Tebboune wants to restore the image of his country on the international scene after an eclipse due to the interminable end of the reign of Abdelaziz Bouteflika (1999-2019).

Already launched in an electoral campaign which does not say its name, the president multiplies the trips – except in France, where he postponed indefinitely a visit planned for June and with which the relations are notoriously tense – and grants all-out interviews. It is necessary to “strengthen the non-aligned position” of Algeria and to be “protected from the tension between two poles” (led one by the United States, the other by Russia), had thus explained the head of state in July 2022, five months after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. Then, in November, Algeria officially applied to join the BRICS.

Algiers and Beijing have steadily strengthened their relations in recent years. According to estimates by the China Africa Research Initiative, based at Johns-Hopkins University (Baltimore), China now holds 17% of the market share in Algeria, against 10% for France and 7% for Italy, and the gross annual income of Chinese companies there exceeds 7.5 billion dollars (about 6.7 billion euros).

A deep water port project

Since the early 2000s, Chinese companies have largely benefited from contracts in the field of infrastructure – work launched in favor of a considerable increase in oil revenues from Algeria. They took charge of most of the east-west highway (more than 11 billion dollars), the cost of which became one of the scandals of the Bouteflika era, the construction of the Great Mosque of Algiers ( $1.5 billion), the International Conference Center of Algiers ($500 million), and major housing and stadium construction programs.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune now wants to boost Chinese investments, and in particular include the deep-water port project of El Hamdania, in Cherchell. A place that Algiers would like to see be part of the “New Silk Roads” initiative, which it joined in 2018. As early as 2014, Algeria had signed a “global strategic partnership” agreement with China. An alliance that has already largely borne fruit.

As in Gara Djebilet, an open pit iron mine located in Tindouf (southwest). This deposit was to be the place of reconciliation between the former king of Morocco Hassan II and the ex-Algerian president Houari Boumédiène after the 1973 agreement between the two countries. The agreement provided for the creation as soon as “as soon as possible” of an “Algerian-Moroccan company for the development of the Gara Djebilet mine”.

Frozen for almost half a century due to tensions between the two neighbors, the project was finally relaunched at the end of July 2022. Without Morocco, but with China. The Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, Mohamed Arkab, announced from Tindouf the production targets: between 2 and 3 million tonnes of iron ore by 2025, then 40 to 50 million tonnes from of 2026.