Family farm in Meftah, a town in the Mitidja plain which was once the breadbasket of Europe, a modern 300-seat hospital, cement factory, brickyard, pharmaceutical industry, automobile assembly or even a 1,000-hectare farm at the gates of desert… The appetite of the brothers Abdenour and Azzedine Souakri for business knows no bounds.
In this modest restaurant in Algiers where they invite us to meet at the end of October, the two brothers arrive suitcases in hand, ready to hit the road with Turkish businessmen eager to establish a partnership in the framework of an agricultural project that the Souakri launched in El M’Ghair, a desert region located 600 km south-west of the capital.
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With an investment of some eight billion dinars (nearly 56 million euros), the Souakri group aims to develop market gardening there, mainly for export to Europe, Great Britain and Russia. With the key, the creation of 1,000 new jobs. “Foreign customers have already signed the order books,” enthuses Abdenour Souakri. We have the possibility of flowering the desert as long as they let us work. »