In his article entitled “Quel Gâchis!” (What a waste!) published on Sept 24, 2016 on the website Libre Algérie, Smail Goumeziane, writer and former Algerian minister of trade said the “brain drain” of more than 500,000 Algerian executives who have migrated, has cost the nation about $165 billion in 30 years.

To assess the financial impact of the “brain drain” which he described as “invisible exports”, Mr. Goumeziane has taken three factors into account. The first is what host countries save on “training and education”, the second is losses to Algeria’s GDP (national wealth), and last is profit generated for host countries’ GDP.

Regarding the first factor, an executive trained in his country and migrating helps the host country save $12,000 per year. Thus, for the 500,000 Algerian executives surveyed, this implies a loss of $60 billion for Algeria over the period considered, the author said.

Concerning the second factor, given that “Algeria’s GDP per capita is $7000 per year, the migration of 500,000 executives leads to a loss of about…$105 billion for Algeria”.

Both cases combined, “the invisible human exports” have cost Algeria $165 billion, over 30 years.

As for the third case, Goumeziane said that if each executive generates $20,000 in their host country, it represents a total of $300 billion which would be generated by the population of executives surveyed over the three decades considered.

However, the migration of 500,000 Algerian executives has allowed host countries to accumulate $465 billion of profits over 30 years.

“Shouldn’t we therefore do everything to stop the bleeding?” the former minister said.

Alain Okpeitcha