Réseaux financiers et marchés parallèles de devises. Des Algériens dans l'économie informelle

Abstract

Financial Networks and Parallel Currency Markets : Algerians in the Black-Market Economy. Mohamed Benbouzid. The black-market economy plays an important role in Algerian society. It is the response to a planned economy that is progressively pulling the country toward destitution. Informal activities, which have imported foreign goods more or less illegally since the 1970's, are rapidly increasing. Informal importation requires foreign currency. Importers are faced with the obstacle of the non-convertibility of Algerian currency and the inaccessibility of exchanging it by legal means, just as the demand for foreign currency is rising to fill the need for all sorts of products that have become more scarce and more expensive in Algeria. Logically, Algerian emigration is becoming the main source of foreign currency. The parallel market for foreign currency has expanded as migrants, then later as Algerian economic speculators, have taken charge of it. By way of a reticular process which structures these parallel currency markets, these actors organise the gathering and distribution of foreign currency from migration. After analysing the economic and sociological bases of this phenomenon, the author describes the organisation of these exchange transactions, based on a study, beginning in Saint-Etienne and extending to Algeria.