CNESE Conference on the development dimensions of the Gara Djebilet deposit

The meeting was attended by Karima Bakir Tafer, Secretary of State to the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Mines, responsible for Mines; Farid Yaici, Advisor to the President of the Republic responsible for finance, banks, the budget, foreign exchange reserves, public procurement and international payments; Professor Kamel Sanhadji, President of the National Health Security Agency; Prof. Kamel Sanhadji, and the Director General of the Algerian Investment Promotion Agency (AAPI), Omar Rekkache, in addition to representatives of the Council of the Nation, several ministries, as well as experts and university lecturers.

In a speech at the event, CNESE President Mohamed Boukhari emphasized the economic importance of this deposit, considered an integrated development area capable of strengthening the country's industrial security and improving the competitiveness of the national economy as a whole.

"This giant infrastructure, completed in record time, is the realisation of an economic space where extraction, transport, energy, industrial processing and local development chains are integrated in a coherent and interconnected architecture, strengthening national sovereignty, guaranteeing industrial security and improving the competitiveness of the national economy, while contributing to its diversification."

For her part, Ms Tafer stated that the Gara Djebilet mine represents "the cornerstone" in the process of strengthening the country's economic sovereignty, emphasising that the President's decision to launch the exploitation of this deposit, alongside the completion of the Tindouf-Béchar-Gara Djebilet mining railway line, marks a real turning point in the development of national mining resources.

This project is not limited to iron ore mining, but is part of a vision to establish an integrated industrial value chain encompassing extraction, processing and transformation, thereby reducing imports and developing industrial exports, she added.

She also emphasised that Gara Djebilet, along with related industrial facilities in Tindouf, Béchar and Naâma, are capable of bringing about significant economic and social change by reducing the import bill and boosting exports, in addition to creating around 24,000 direct and indirect jobs, which "will transform the Greater South-West region into a major industrial hub contributing to national economic growth and regional development".

Speaking at the conference, Malek Ould Hammou, director of the mining engineering research laboratory at the National Polytechnic School (ENP), said that studies carried out on the project confirm its technical feasibility, noting that the high iron ore content in the deposit exceeds the global average requirements.

For CNESE member Zahra Bouras, this project goes beyond traditional models of "transport corridors" or "resource corridors", which were previously limited to connecting production areas to transport networks alone.

She pointed out that the approach adopted in the Gara Djebilet project relies on developing an integrated corridor connecting the extraction sites to transport infrastructure and processing areas.