It was an Algerian economist and former International Monetary Fund official who reached for his calculator. In an analysis reported by Maghreb Emergent, Abdelrahmi Bessaha compared two figures supposedly measuring the same thing: the wealth Algeria will produce in 2027.
The draft 2027 Finance Act puts that wealth at 53.122 trillion dinars. The IMF estimates it at 45.041 trillion. The difference, 8.081 trillion dinars, represents nearly 18% of the Fund’s projection. At the exchange rate used by the government itself, that works out to approximately $62 billion.
Sixty-two billion dollars is roughly what neighboring Tunisia produces in an entire year. With a stroke of the pen, the Algerian government has therefore added the equivalent of a country of 12 million people to its economy. Without a single new factory being built, another oil well being drilled or an additional job being created.
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What is most troubling is the timing of this revelation. Last year, the 2026 budget projected a GDP for 2027 very close to the IMF’s estimate. The two figures matched. Then an IMF mission visited Algiers from June 16 to 30, published its projections on September 21, and the Council of Ministers approved the new budget on October 4.
In the meantime, Algeria’s projected GDP for 2027 had jumped by 27% between two successive finance acts, rising from 41.859 trillion to 53.122 trillion dinars. The economist asks the uncomfortable question: did the data justifying this revision already exist when the IMF was making its calculations in Algiers? And if so, why were they not disclosed?
Because real growth, meanwhile, has barely changed: 4.4% in 2025, 4.3% in 2026 and 4.2% in 2027, according to the same documents.
Algeria is not producing more wheat, gas or cement than previously expected. The difference comes almost entirely from prices—in other words, from the way the figures are calculated.
As for the National Statistics Office’s change of base year, which raised GDP by 12.8% in 2024, it happened too long ago to explain a discrepancy that emerged in 2026. And, as Abdelrahmi Bessaha points out, a statistical revaluation “does not constitute additional wealth creation.” Repainting a car will not make it go any faster.
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Why, then, inflate this figure? Because GDP is not just another number. It is the denominator in every ratio used to measure a country’s financial health: deficits, debt and spending.
The larger the denominator, the smaller the result appears. The 2027 budget projects a deficit of 8.6315 trillion dinars. Measured against the government’s GDP figure, that represents 16.25%. Measured against the IMF’s estimate, it exceeds 19%. The hole is exactly the same; only the yardstick used to measure it has changed.
Everyone knows the trick. It is what a borrower does when trying to convince his bank: instead of reducing his debts, he declares a higher salary. On paper, his debt-to-income ratio falls. In reality, he still owes exactly the same amount at the end of the month. The Algerian regime is applying the method on a national scale, hoping that lawmakers, who are due to vote on the budget on November 16, will ask no questions.
En 2023, l'Algérie a révisé le calcul de son PIB sans divulguer le mode de modélisation et les paramètres utilisés. Cette révision a entraîné une augmentation du PIB de 187 à 233 milliards de dollars, soit une hausse de 46 milliards de dollars.
In 2023, Algeria revised its GDP calculation without disclosing the modelling method or parameters used. The revision increased GDP from $187 billion to $233 billion, a rise of $46 billion.
Yet they would have plenty of questions to ask. Even with an embellished GDP figure, the deficit remains staggering: one-sixth of national wealth, financed largely by the Bank of Algeria. The IMF stated this explicitly in its latest assessment, noting the increase in government financing by the central bank.
In plain terms, the money-printing presses, officially switched off in 2019, are still running. An inflated GDP figure does nothing to change that mechanism. It merely makes it less visible.
The Algerian government has not publicly responded to these questions. Nor has it explained the discrepancy with the IMF, even though the Fund had been working in Algiers with official data just weeks before the budget was adopted. The economist does not declare either side right. He simply asks to see the accounts. In a country where budgets are passed without debate and where a press willing to ask such questions does not exist, the request has something audacious about it.
Algeria’s GDP in 2027 will therefore be larger than expected, at least in the Finance Ministry’s spreadsheets. Algerians, meanwhile, will measure their country’s wealth differently: by the price of potatoes and the dollar exchange rate in Port-Saïd Square.
