While some Algerians believe that a brand-new banknote will facilitate purchasing procedures, others call for more advanced payment tools.
The Bank of Algeria last week introduced a new 2,000-dinar bill. The banknote, released April 28th, can be recognised by its greenish-blue colour, the watermark depicting the effigy of Emir Abdelkader, a safety thread and a hologram.
The regulation was adopted by the Currency and Credit Council last month in order to enlarge the range of banknotes available in Algeria and bring the number of denominations on the market to five.
The reverse of the bill features two images - one showing a university professor teaching in a lecture hall and the other depicting a group of researchers at a laboratory. In addition, one can learn about the development of key industries in Algeria, including agriculture and water resources, on the reverse side of the bill.
According to Director-General of the Bank of Algeria Abdelaziz Hamlat, the newly released banknote has some cutting-edge features in terms of design, reliability and security.
The bill "will bring a new breeze to the fiduciary money and will increase its availability", explained Mahrez Zaiba, who works at the Bank of Algeria.
It will also help modernise the currency series issued in the 1990s and reinforce the fight against currency counterfeiting, he added.
Economist Riagh Mensouri said that the issuance would not have any impact on the money supply in Algeria or retail prices.
"This should simply give one the possibility to carry a sum of 10,000 dinars in only five bills instead of ten bills," he said. "Nonetheless, the purchasing power of this sum will remain unchanged."
Reactions were varied among Algerians.
"With this new banknote, one can get rid of the burden of so many banknotes with low denomination," Rachid Hammoud said. "You walk in the street and don't draw attention to yourself. Nonetheless, the design of the banknote is also quite aesthetically enjoyable."
It is necessary to "make the used, severely damaged banknotes progressively vanish from the market", Mourad Seghir said.
"Since long, I haven't seen any new unstained 200-dinar bill. They are all fixed with tape," he added.
Economist and management expert Abdelhak Lamiri welcomed the new measure but warned that it must stay within the reasonable proportions. "Anything beyond a 50% increase of the money supply leads to a big surplus of money in people's pockets, while no new products are introduced to the market, and this causes an inflationary trend."
Meanwhile, Redha Hamiani, chairman of the Forum of Business Leaders, criticised the measure, which, according to him, shows the inability of the national economy to progress toward the use of more modern payments tools, such as checks, debit and credit cards.
"This gives cause for concern," he said. "We ought to monitor very closely this policy that puts more banknotes in the market."
© Magharebia.com 2011
