Background
He was born on November 1931, in a Berber village in the Kabylie.
He was born on November 1931, in a Berber village in the Kabylie.
Although he had little schooling he made his way to Paris where he became a leading member of the General Union of Algerian Moslem Students (UGEMA).
During the liberation struggle he was outside Algeria as a fund-raising agent on the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Cairo, Djakarta and Delhi. After independence in 1962 he returned home and was appointed to the Foreign Ministry as a senior official. After a few years he won Bouteflika’s support and with ministerial backing he began to push himself forward. He had to wait, however, for nearly four years following Boumedienne’s take-over in June 1965 for his political break—a cabinet post.
Trade expansion came slowly because of the austerity required during the exploitation of the oil wealth but he kept seeking out new opportunities for trade agreements in East and West which began to yield impressive results in 1972.
Hard-headed party worker who im¬pressed Foreign Minister Bouteflika as a ministry official and got his chance to prove his abilities as a trade negotiator round the world. Although often criticised as a Minister for shortages on the home market and for his thin reedy-voiced defence of austerity he has only been in a position to improve consumer choice since mid-1972 when government spending priorities allowed more imports. Gradually he has managed to get an expanded flow of goods through travelling to such countries as China, Korea and India as well as European countries to make long-term trade agreements.