ALGIERS – France’s Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne said Monday in Algiers that French companies were ready to contribute to the diversification of the Algerian economy, assuring that cooperation between Algerian and French companies can be “very successful.”
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Algeria-France Economic Forum, which she co-chaired with the Prime Minister, Aimene Benabderrhamane, Borne said that with the will of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and that of the Prime Minister “I know that Algeria is committed to an ambitious diversification of its economy.
In this sense, she that “French companies are ready to participate in this move,” recalling that “the Algiers Statement” lists sectors of the future, “and we must seize this opportunity.”
“I am convinced that we will be stronger together. The conviction that cooperation between Algerian and French companies can be the source of great success,” she said.
She called this forum as a “strong symbol” in which each sector represented by entrepreneurs from both sides embodies a facet of cooperation between the two countries and each company “carries solutions for global challenges that we have to face.”
Addressing businessmen from both countries, Borne said that each of them has a “decisive role” and “boosts the relationship between France and Algeria.”
The French PM recalled that the meeting between President Tebboune and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on the occasion of the friendship visit to Algiers by the latter in August marked “a decisive step” in bilateral ties.
The two heads of state had laid “the foundations of a renewed relationship”, what they called “a pact for the future for our countries, our peoples and our youth”, she said.
This ambition has been enshrined in an “ambitious document, namely the Algiers Statement,” which binds us and commits us to move forward in many areas such as energy transition, digital, health, agri-food and industry.
Borne said that “France has always been a major partner of Algeria, the second in terms of trade, with a volume of trade that continues to increase, and especially the first investor outside hydrocarbons in Algeria.”
Believing that Algeria, with the new law on investment, “takes the path of attractiveness”, the French PM called for “multiplying the bridges between our youth and set up educational, cultural and entrepreneurial cooperation that will allow them to talk, understand each other and move in the same direction.”