For several months now, a well‑identified group of Moroccan commentators—among them Rachid Achichi and other self‑proclaimed “experts” in economics and geopolitics—has been devoting disproportionate energy to challenging the way Algeria’s GDP is calculated. This repetitive and often approximate fixation says less about Algeria’s economic reality than about Morocco’s strategic unease in the face of shifting regional power dynamics.
1. Algeria’s GDP: a controlled accounting framework, not a political invention
Contrary to the recurring insinuations, Algeria’s GDP is neither improvised data nor an ideological construction. It is established in accordance with the System of National Accounts (SNA), a universal international framework, and is subject to external audits, verifications and validations conducted by international financial institutions.
The more accurate integration of the informal economy—common practice in most emerging countries—is a methodological rebasing exercise, not an artificial inflation. Presenting this statistical update as manipulation is either a sign of ignorance of international standards or a deliberate attempt to create confusion.
As for the dinar’s exchange rate, its evolution follows a strict regulatory framework defined by the Bank of Algeria. The idea of a political adjustment intended to “inflate GDP” is unfounded: a currency’s appreciation has major repercussions on the entire economy—imports, exports, macroeconomic balance. If a simple adjustment were enough to mechanically increase national wealth, every country would have done it long ago.
Finally, critics systematically fail to mention two essential dynamics: the strong growth of the agricultural sector—now one of Algeria’s true economic engines—and the tangible impact of reindustrialization. The significant rise in non‑hydrocarbon exports is clear evidence of this.
2. An obsessive criticism revealing a comparative complex
It is striking that this debate is driven almost exclusively by Moroccan voices, often in a defensive or even anxious tone. Why such insistence on proving that “Algeria’s GDP is fake”?
The answer is simple: Algeria has surpassed Morocco on several key macroeconomic indicators, and this reality disrupts a narrative long maintained in Rabat—that of Morocco as an “economic model” versus an allegedly rentier and ineffective Algeria.
Instead of a serious economic debate, what we see is an attempt at disqualification: if Algeria progresses, it cannot be through reform or structural capacity, but through statistical cheating. A posture that is more emotional than analytical.
3. Selective and sometimes surreal arguments
First, Morocco possesses major strategic resources: extremely large phosphate reserves, some of Africa’s richest fisheries, an advantageous logistical position, and preferential trade agreements.
Second, the Moroccan economy also benefits from significant parallel and informal financial flows, often absent from the official discourse: a well‑documented cannabis economy, informal rent circuits, and a tourism sector with a strong sexual dimension—elements rarely integrated transparently in comparative debates, yet implicitly invoked when the aim is to downplay Algerian figures.
The criticism thus becomes selective: what is “informal” and suspicious in Algeria becomes “invisible” or “irrelevant” in Morocco.
4. The real blind spot: HDI and social choices
Instead of nitpicking Algeria’s statistical methods, the debate would be much more serious if Morocco questioned its own structural social indicators.
Morocco’s Human Development Index (HDI) remains behind that of Algeria and Tunisia, reflecting economic choices marked by:
- high social inequalities,
- a growing dependence on low‑inclusion sectors,
- and persistent fragility in essential public services.
Development is not about macroeconomic communication; it is about a state’s ability to transform wealth into collective well‑being.
5. Conclusion: comparison is legitimate, denigration is not
Economic comparison between neighbouring countries is legitimate. Obsessive denial is not.
Algeria’s GDP can—and should—be debated, analysed and improved. But reducing it to a “political invention” amounts to strategic denial, motivated less by economic rigour than by the difficulty of accepting an ongoing regional rebalancing.
In economics as in geopolitics, lucidity is better than polemics, and introspection is better than projection.
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