Algeria expects its economy to grow by 5.2 percent next year from an envisaged 5.0 percent this year, mainly on the back of soaring oil prices, the text of the draft budget for 2007 shows.
The government projects an inflation rate of 3.5 percent in 2007, the same as projected for 2006, according to the text of the draft budget presented to the parliament by Finance Minister Mourad Medelci late on Saturday.
Last year, it launched a five-year $80 billion investment programme to spur economic growth and rebuild infrastructure after a decade of civil strife which cost an estimated 200,000 lives and resulted in damage of about $30 billion since 1992.
"For 2007, the third year since the start of the implementation of the revival economic programme, a growth of 5.2 percent and an inflation of 3.5 percent are expected," according to the draft budget text.
The government had said it expected growth to reach 8.0 percent in 2008.
The OPEC-member nation is benefiting from soaring oil prices, and the value of its oil and gas sales reached $40 billion in the first nine months of this year.
That figure was at $45.6 billion in calendar 2005, up from $31 billion in the previous year.
Energy earnings, which represent about 97 percent of total exports abroad, are also being used to repay foreign debt. The North African country plans to cut its debt to $5 billion by the end of 2006 from $15.5 billion at the end of last February.
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