Work has started on the motorway crossing Algeria from east to west, which is designed to be part of a 7,000km road network across the Maghreb. The government has labeled it the largest road project in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
The idea of a trans-Maghreb motorway was first floated in the 1970s — the plan was that it would be integrated into a trans-African route. Three decades later, the first sod was turned earlier this year on the Algerian segment, a project that is estimated to cost $11 billion, the bill being fully paid by the Algerian state. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was present at the commencement ceremony at Hammadi, east of Algiers.
The six-lane “East-West” motorway project is the centerpiece in the government’s $80 billion program of investment in Algeria’s transport infrastructure. Around 25,000km of roads are being improved, and new ports and airports constructed, with existing facilities being modernized and expanded.
A step toward integration
The construction contracts for the motorway have been awarded to two parties; Japanese consortium Kojal is to build a 400km section in the east of the country, while the Chinese group CITIC/CRRC will take responsibility for the 528km in the west and center of Algeria. The motorway will present challenges for the contractors; the road will have a total of 538 bridges and 13 tunnels, as well as links to other roads.
The full length of the six-lane motorway, scheduled for completion in late 2009 or early 2010, will be 1,213km. It will pass through 24 of the country’s 48 provinces and, it is hoped, bring significant economic benefits.
Indeed, the project should start to benefit the country even during construction. In March, public works minister Amar Ghoul described the infrastructure projects as “a workshop meant to provide jobs to the Algerian jobless.” Once completed, economic activity generated by the East-West motorway should create at least 100,000 jobs, according to official forecasts. It will also pass through the Algerian cities of Annaba, Constantine, Setif, Algiers, Oran and Tlemcen, which the government is trying to develop as manufacturing centers.
The road will link Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia via a major motorway for the first time, boosting trade and economic co-operation and integration. Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have encouraged stronger economic ties in the region. All three countries are members of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), as are Libya and Mauritania. Currently, only 3% of all foreign trade volume of the bloc is generated by inter-union trade, and poor infrastructure connecting the countries is partly to blame, as are poor foreign relations.
The majority of Algeria’s non-energy exports are transported by road, on an often congested and run-down network; according to the ministry of transport, 90% of all traffic consists of freight vehicles.
Ghoul has emphasized the importance of linking the East-West motorway with others in the region and has been in talks with counterparts in Tunisia and Morocco on this issue.
The motorway has not been welcomed in all quarters, however. In late June, environmentalists warned that under current plans the road would pass through the El Kala national park, which lies on the Mediterranean coast, for a distance of 15 kilometers.
The park covers an area of wetlands and forests which are the habitat of many of the country’s distinctive flora and fauna including birds of prey, fox, lynx, tortoise and wild cat which the environmentalists said would be put at risk by the motorway.
The government immediately responded to the claims, with Ghoul saying that a last-minute re-routing was impossible, as it could increase the project’s costs by $2 billion. However, this was followed by an equally swift volte face, with the government declaring that construction work in the region would be suspended and a different route found.
“We have ordered the national motorways agency to widen the consultation to academics, experts, national associations and our partners,” Ghoul told the local press. “Today, we can affirm as for us that there is no longer a problem concerning El Kala park.”
Once completed, the motorway should bring with it huge benefits to the country. There is little doubt of the need for a major, modern motorway across Algeria, and the region, where development has been hamstrung by poor infrastructure. If agreements can be reached on joining it to other roads of similar capacity in the rest of the Maghreb, the plans first conceived in the 1970s will become a reality.
