According to the director of production and technologies at Sonatrach, the government of Algeria has earmarked $650 million to develop a series of hydrocarbon projects to be carried out by state-owned agencies Sonatrach and Sonelgaz. Algeria’s crude production stood at 1.2 million barrels per day during the past three years but the country is seeking fresh investors to increase energy production so as to compensate for the decreasing output from existing oil fields.

According to the Egyptian central bank, Egypt’s core annual inflation rate declined to 7.06 percent in January from 7.69 percent the previous month. Egypt’s urban consumer inflation fell to an annual 9.7 percent in January from 10.1 percent in the previous month. The bank cut its benchmark interest rates by 50 basis points last month, citing an easing inflation outlook. [Reuters, 2/10/2015]

A member of the House of Representatives (HoR) said its next session will cover the proposed move of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) to Beida in the east of the country. The Tobruk government wants to close the CBL head office in Tripoli and set up a new one in Beida to restrict funds to the rival Tripoli authority. However, it is not clear how a rival CBL in Beida would acquire revenues, given its lack of involvement in international oil sales and few other sources of state income in Libya. [Libya Monitor (subscription), 2/10/2015]

The Damascus government has approved a 2015 budget amounting to 1.55 billion Syrian pounds ($9 billion), with an increase of 164 million pounds ($868 million) compared to the 2014 budget. The 2015 budget was described as “the largest public budget” in Syrian history. It is a high figure in Syrian pounds, but a very small figure when calculating the deterioration of the exchange rate, caused by losses in different economic sectors due to the devastating war and the decline in tourism and oil revenue. [Al-Monitor, 2/10/2015]