Description

Houari Boumediene, who took over in 1965 through a military coup, was a pragmatic president. Boumediene's First ThreeYear Plan (1967-69) marked the beginning of long-term development planning in Algeria. In 1970 a newly created Secretariat of State for Planning took over economic planning from the Ministry of Finance, underscoring the regime's emphasis on social and economic development. The new secretariat developed the First Four-Year Plan (1970-73) and the Second Four-Year Plan (1974-77), which emphasized investment in capital-intensive heavy industry at the expense of more labor-intensive small industries that would generate badly needed employment.

The First Five-Year Plan (1980-84) and Second Five-Year Plan (1985-89) aimed at building a diversified economy and reflected the more moderate views of the less ideological Chadli Benjedid. A special congress of the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale-FLN) had selected Benjedid in January 1979 to succeed Boumediene, who had died of a rare blood disease in December 1978.