Press releases

Algeria Signs Up to ITC Regional Trade Promotion Programme

29 November 2010
ITC News

 

Boosting non-oil exports to enhance job opportunities for women and young people

Algeria has formally signed up to the International Trade Centre’s (ITC) Canadian-financed Enhancement of Arab Trade Capacity (EnACT) programme at a ceremony in Algiers attended by Trade Minister El Hachemi Djaaboub and ITC Executive Director Patricia R. Francis.

The four-year EnACT programme, linking Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Algeria, is designed to boost trade both between the participating countries and with other regions by reinforcing trade policy-making, trade promotion and export competitiveness.

Ms Francis said at the signing ceremony: “ITC’s credo is Export Impact for Good: creating opportunities for a wider cross-section of the population through increased exports.”

The programme has four main thrusts: improving trade intelligence, trade policy and export strategy; strengthening the capacity of trade support institutions to promote export competitiveness; developing markets and supporting small and medium-sized private sector companies, particularly in the handicraft sector; and creating opportunities for women and young people.

Ms Francis pledged: “We will support trade support institutions doing a better job of helping exporters, by building their capacities to develop business intelligence on new opportunities: what to sell and where to sell, in the world as well as right here in the region.”

She said the programme would support development of regional trade by creating and reinforcing networks of women and young people in the five participating countries, and with the rest of Africa.

The Trade Minister Mr El Hachemi Djaaboub stated that the EnACT programme “will support the Algerian operators in terms of enhancing the range of non-oil exports and strengthen the instruments of intervention by trade support agencies with the mandate of increasing Algerian exports, such as L’Agence Algérienne de Promotion des Exportations (ALGEX)”.

The countries covered by EnACT all have young populations. They are endowed with natural resources and have strong agricultural and industrial potential as well as a relative proximity to markets in Europe, the oil-rich Gulf region and the rest of Africa. Their own growing markets also have the potential to absorb products and services originating in the region.

EnACT works with other donors and UN specialized agencies to harness ITC’s successful experiences around the globe to strengthen national export strategies, create further regional potential for trade, and enhance regional integration through further activating existing trade cooperation agreements, creating easier access for competitive products and services.

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