Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ordered on Sunday 18 October an inquiry into the prices of imported meat and its sale in butchers' shops, according to the Council of Ministers' statement. The Prime Minister is tasked with conducting it immediately.
The investigations are to examine the role of certain importers in the monopolistic practices and price rises denounced by the presidency. They also concern butchers selling these products at the price of local meat, and the gaps observed between wilayas, and even between neighbourhoods.
The Ministry of Domestic Trade is also to draw up a mechanism for capping prices and setting margins for vegetables, pulses, pasta and meat. Its preparation must take account of production and marketing chains. The caps themselves remain to be set.
To act on supply, the Minister of the Interior is tasked with setting up, together with the walis, a mechanism for purchasing local surplus. These products must be stored and then returned to the market at the first signs of price fluctuations.
The presidency also requests a draft text regulating intermediaries between producers and consumers, as well as a strengthening of control squads. A digital database is to serve as an alert in case of abnormal price rises.
Fruit and vegetable market in Batna, Algeria, on 31 December 2022. Archive photo, unrelated to the decisions of October 2026. Rachid Hamatou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Orientation corrected, reduced and converted to WebP.
