The Algerian government inaugurated a brake pad manufacturing plant in Reghaia, on the outskirts of Algiers, which was formerly privately owned and then confiscated as part of the investigations targeting the former oligarchy.
Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb, acting on behalf of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, presented its reopening as a new step in the policy of recovering and developing assets seized by the state.
The brake pad factory in Reghaia, now controlled by the Eastern Maintenance Company (SME), a subsidiary of the state-owned GICA group, boasts a stated capacity of 1.5 million pads per year and is slated to produce 153 different models for light vehicles, heavy goods vehicles, tractors, and other mechanical equipment.
However, the figure of “150 pads per day,” also cited in the information accompanying the inauguration, appears inconsistent with an annual production of 1.5 million units and illustrates the lack of clarity still surrounding the site’s actual performance.
Algiers aims to cover between 30% and 40% of the national market’s needs with this factory, before targeting
African markets. But no detailed data has been provided on current import volumes, the cost of producing Algerian parts, their local integration rate, or their ability to compete with foreign products.
The issue of raw materials also remains crucial for assessing the effective substitution of imports.
The ceremony also highlighted the state of the recovered asset.
According to information presented during the visit, 90% of the equipment was out of service when it was transferred to the SME, and only one press was operational. Its rehabilitation therefore represents a concrete industrial achievement, but also reveals several years of immobilisation and deterioration of a production tool that the state now intends to showcase as a flagship of its new industrial policy.
Two agreements have been concluded with Stellantis El Djazaïr and IDE-NET to develop subcontracting and local automotive integration.
The plant is also expected to generate more than 150 jobs, including about sixty direct ones. These partnerships could provide opportunities for the site, but their impact will depend on the orders actually signed and the ramp-up of an Algerian automotive industry that remains in reconstruction after several years of regulatory instability.
“We are not resting on our laurels; we are working quietly,” declared Sifi Ghrieb, announcing the gradual recovery of other units.
For Algiers, Réghaïa must demonstrate that confiscated assets can become instruments of industrial sovereignty. But between restarting a factory and establishing a competitive, export-oriented automotive sector, there is still a considerable distance to cover: success will be measured less by inaugurations than by the actual production volumes, local content, and the ability of the public companies involved to operate sustainably without depending on state support.
MK/AK/Sf/fss/as/APA