Algérie Presse Service (APS) – November 16, 2011
ALGIERS – With Finance Minister Karim Djoudi in attendance, the members of the Council of the Nation adopted yesterday the draft version of Finance Law for 2012, at a plenary session presided by Mr. Abdelkader Bensalah, the President of the Council of the Nation.
Adopted by unanimous vote, the text proposes a series of socioeconomic measures intended to foster investment and development of enterprises namely through tax relief benefiting small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The measures proposed stem from recommendations made by the Tripartite at its May 28 proceedings.
Estimation of state budget for 2012 uses $37 for a barrel of oil as fiscal reference and $90 for market price, an exchange rate of 74 Algerian Dinars (DA) to a U.S. dollar, a growth rate of 4.7% and inflation rate of 4%.
Without introducing substantial taxes, the budget set expenditures at 7,428 billion DA and revenues amounting to 3,455.6 billion DA, a budget deficit equivalent to 25.4% of the GDP, compared a forecasted deficit of 34% of the GDP for 2011.
Ordinary tax revenues forecast for 2012 amount to 1,894 billion DA, while oil taxes is assessed to reach 1,561.6 billion DA. Over one sixth of expenditures (1,300 billion DA) is allocated to social expenditures and national solidarity programs.
