The Corona pandemic prevented millions of Algerian immigrants from spending the summer vacation in their homeland, and deprived the country's treasury of significant amounts of foreign exchange.

According to unofficial estimates, about 7 million Algerian expatriates live around the world, including more than 5 million in France alone, about 150,000 in Spain, and 60,000 in Britain.

Last March, Algeria closed its land, air and sea borders to confront the outbreak of the Corona virus, and the situation remains unchanged, with some exceptions for flights to evacuate stranded abroad.

As of September 3, 2020, Algeria had recorded 46,000 364 cases of Coronavirus, including 1,556 deaths, and 32,745 recoveries.

Closed borders

Weeks ago, the Algerian presidency said in a statement that the country's land, sea and air borders would remain closed, due to the continuing outbreak of the Coronavirus, and between March 19 and the end of last July, Algerian Airlines canceled 4,357 flights, equivalent to 1.07 million seats, most of them directed For immigrants, amid losses estimated at 135 million dollars, and is expected to reach 290 million dollars by the end of the year.

In light of the closure of the sea and airspace to Algeria, the authorities found themselves facing an evacuation of non-immigrant citizens stranded abroad, which has so far enabled the return of more than 30,000 citizens to their country.

Usually, Algerian airports and ports witness a heavy movement of returning migrants during the summer holidays, accompanied by a significant increase in ticket prices due to the great demand for them.

And every summer, migrants returning to Algeria carry luggage and money in foreign exchange, whether in cash or in foreign currency accounts in local banks, which are mostly spent on the parallel market for currencies, and according to the Algerian government estimates, migrant remittances annually (through banks) range from 2 And 3 billion dollars.

The arrival of expatriates, especially from Europe, to spend the summer vacation is more than necessary because of its contribution to bringing foreign currency to the country (Anadolu Agency)

Economic effects

For his part, the representative of immigrants in the Algerian Parliament, Samir Shaabneh, believes that the closure of the sea, air and land borders of Algeria prevented about 800 thousand expatriates in France alone from spending their vacation in their homeland.

Shaabneh told Anadolu Agency that the inability of a large number of Algerian immigrants to spend their annual summer vacation in their homeland has economic and social repercussions.

On the economic side, he explained that Algeria received 800,000 expatriates from France last year who spent their vacation in the country, and the number would have been higher this year had it not been for the Corona pandemic.

According to Shaabneh, the vacation this year would have been divided into 3 seasons, the first during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the second during June and July (the summer vacation), and the third in August (Eid al-Adha). The country has significant foreign exchange earnings amounting to 800 million euros (930 million dollars) at least for those coming from France only, with an average expenditure of 1,000 euros per person (1117 dollars), according to Shaabneh.

In addition to the economic effects, Shaabneh believes that there are social consequences, on the basis that thousands of expatriates were prevented from attending events in Algeria, such as weddings and religious ones, and that expatriates were prevented from returning, and also from attending funerals of relatives who died, whether with the Corona virus or for other reasons.

Economic movement

In turn, the Algerian activist residing in French Marseille, Youssef Bouaboun, believes that the Corona pandemic has economic consequences, especially for expatriates abroad and the country in general.

Bouaboun explained that the Corona pandemic prevented small expatriate merchants from returning to the homeland, as they were every time creating economic movement with the goods they brought with them.

The pandemic also has a significant impact on government companies for maritime and air transport, which deprived their coffers five months ago of foreign exchange in exchange for ticket reservations abroad, according to Bouaboun.

He pointed out that the absence of expatriates this year from Algeria will contribute to the slowdown in the economic and tourism movement (hotel and home reservations) that the country witnessed every summer.

He believed that the slowdown of the movement would be especially in areas known to the presence of a large number of its people abroad, such as the Kabylie region, the capital, Oran, Setif, Batna Constantine and Jijel, among others.

According to Bouaboun, the pandemic has deprived expatriates of social relations in their countries, such as mixed marriage (the marriage of an emigrant or expatriate with a citizen or a citizen of Algeria), in addition to attending family and religious events.

The absence of expatriates this year from Algeria will contribute to the slowdown in the economic and tourism movements (Reuters)

Cash transfers

As for the expert and professor of economics at Ibn Khaldun University (governmental) Abd al-Rahman Ayah, he believes that the arrival of expatriates - especially from Europe to spend the summer vacation - is more than necessary, because of its contribution to bringing foreign currency to the country.

According to Aya, hundreds of thousands of expatriates spend large sums of foreign exchange annually in public squares (the parallel market).

He pointed out that the foreign exchange - which comes with the expatriates - was usually bought by citizens residing in Algeria for the purposes of tourism, in particular, as banks only give 110 euros per year per person at the official exchange rate.

The exchange rate of the euro in Algerian banks is about 139 dinars, and in the parallel market approximately 200 dinars, the dollar exchange rate in banks is estimated at 120 dinars, and in the parallel market 175 dinars.

With the "evaporation of the summer vacation," according to Aya, the activity of the bag merchants will cease, as this trade was flourishing during the summer vacation, and the shipping and air transport companies for whom the summer vacation represented a golden opportunity to achieve important financial returns will also be affected.