Algeria food imports jump by 19%

Algerian imports of food of grew by 18.8 percent to $816 million in January 2012, against $687 million recorded in January 2011. This growth was posted despite an overall decline of the country\'s import bill by some 6 percent, the state news agency APS reported Wednesday, quoting customs sources. According to figures released by the National Center for Informatics and Statistics of Customs (CNIS), with the exception of meat and sugar, which decreased by 24 percent and 19.8 percent, respectively, all other food products experienced relatively large increases. Among these, the group \"cereals, semolina and flour\" registered 44.98 percent growth during the said period, from $204.2 million to $296 million. This group accounted for nearly 37 percent of the total food imports during January of the current year. In addition, the group of \"coffee and tea\" has seen imports increase by 55.2 percent to $29.9 million. The group of \"pulses and others\" rose by 53.5 percent to $72.5 million, and the group of \"milk and milk products\" went up by 12 percent to reach $145.9 million. All in all, Algerian imports fell 6.28 percent to nearly $3.6 billion last month compared to $3.84 billion recorded a year ago. It should be noted that during January 2012, Algeria had a trade surplus of $2.22 billion against $1.16 billion posted in the same period of 2011, reflecting an increase of 91 percent.