Italian automaker Fiat on Monday inaugurated its first assembly and manufacturing plant in Algeria, in a move that is expected to revive the country's automobile market.
Algeria's car market was sent into a tailspin after the authorities' decision in 2019 to stop importing cars and close assembly factories.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune at the time said the plants "were only used to put wheels on the vehicles" in exchange for large tax concessions.
The opening of the Fiat plant, in the northwestern Algerian city of Oran, marks the first car manufacturing facility to be inaugurated under Tebboune, according to the Algerian news website TSA.
"Given Italian manufacturer Fiat's popularity, the brand was chosen to be the first manufactured locally," Algeria's industry minister Ali Aoun said during the plant's opening ceremony.
The 40-hectare plant was inaugurated after a year in the making and an investment of 200 million euros ($215 million).
Aoun said it would create 1,200 jobs by 2026.
Other projects will follow "in the very near future," said Aoun, who said the plant was "the starting point for a real automobile industry in Algeria".
Italy's vice-minister of enterprises, Valentino Valentini, said the cars produced in Algeria will be "at the highest technical level", including hybrid models as part of efforts to fight climate change.
Agence France-Presse
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