Market Opportunities
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Despite the challenges, Algeria offers U.S. exporters significant opportunities, primarily in government-controlled sectors, especially for companies with the resources to undertake extended and slow-paced business development efforts. Within this context, the most promising areas for U.S. trade and investment include:
- Oil and Gas –In December 2020, the government passed a new law to attract additional foreign investment in exploration and production over the next decade. To support these efforts, the national oil company estimates it will work with numerous smaller companies in reservoir management, well selection and completion, drilling, gas processing, site management, and digital monitoring.
- Renewable Energy - Unless Algeria adds significant renewable resources to its power generation mix by 2035, it will need to forego hydrocarbon export revenues to supply domestic power demand. Algeria therefore aims to produce 27 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2035 and launched the first tender for a one-gigawatt solar energy project in 2021. After this initial award, the government plans to launch additional one-gigawatt tenders through 2035.
- Defense - With an annual defense budget of more than $19 billion, Algeria is Africa’s most prominent defense market, and it depends on foreign suppliers, namely Russia, for most of its equipment. Despite Algerians’ dislike of U.S. end-use monitoring requirements, opportunities for American companies exist in military communications, surveillance electronics, drones, and ground vehicles.
- Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) – Motivated by lagging other African countries in ICT infrastructure, the government will invest significantly in its national ICT infrastructure. Pending investments present opportunities for U.S. exporters of servers, data centers, integrated cloud computing solutions, and fiber optic cable.