The Herdwick sheep
… how Algeria’s auto sector hit the wall
The Herdwick is a breed of domestic sheep native to the Lake District in North West England. The name “Herdwick” is derived from the Old Norse herdvyck, meaning sheep pasture.
Though low in lambing capacity and perceived wool quality when compared to more common commercial breeds, Herdwicks are prized for their robust health, their ability to live solely on forage, and their tendency to be territorial and not to stray over the difficult upland terrain of the Lake District.
It is considered that up to 99% of all Herdwick sheep are commercially farmed in the central and western Lake District.
The wool of a Herdwick has unique qualities relating to durability. Thick bristle type fibres will often protrude from garments made from the wool, forming a protective layer in blizzards most likely the same qualities that protect the sheep in similar conditions. Herdwicks have been known to survive under a blanket of snow for three days while eating their own wool.
Severely threatened by the 2001 outbreak of foot-andmouth disease in England and Wales, the breed has survived due to the intent to preserve this unique animal as a crucial part of traditional Lakeland agriculture.
Still far fewer in number than most commercial breeds, Herdwicks survive largely due to farming subsidies.
Herdwicks are a dual-purpose breed, producing strongly flavoured lamb and mutton and a course, grey wool. The slowly maturing breed is one of the hardiest of all the British hill sheep breeds, withstanding the cold and relentless rain of the Lake District at heights upwards of 3 000 feet (about 1 000 metres).
Herdwick lambs are born black and, after a year, they lighten to a dark brown colour (the sheep are called hoggs or hoggets at this stage). After the first shearing, their fleece lightens further to grey. Rams are horned and ewes polled.
For shows and auctions, Herdwicks traditionally have their wool ruddied up (the local term for raddled) with dye. Rams are also ruddier when put out with the ewes to show which have been mated and the dye is also one method (called a smit) of marking sheep for ownership.
Before chemical dyes became available, this dye was made from either iron ore or graphite mixed with grease. For many years the legal method of identifying a particular shepherd’s sheep were notches cut out of a sheep’s ear, called lug marks - now replaced by ear tags.
ALGIERS - Assembly plants, jailed bosses, laid-off workers. Algeria’s once ambitious plans to create a flagship auto industry have turned into a fiasco.
The country’s recent years of political turmoil have also seen its foreign joint venture factories close and cronies of its ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika end up behind bars.
Algeria’s dream of creating thousands of jobs has collapsed and the country is in dire need of new vehicles.
The government is putting on a brave face.
Industry Minister Ferhat-Ait Ali pledged last month that it is “preparing the revival of this industry on solid foundations, which break with the practices of the past”.
Algeria’s auto industry was born in 2012 when French maker Renault partnered with the government in Algiers to build the first plant two years later near Oran, the country’s second biggest city.
Other companies followed suit. South Korea’s Hyundai opened its assembly plant in 2016 in Tiaret, and Germany’s Volkswagen started operations the next year in Relizane.
The sector became a priority as the North African country sought to reduce imports, compete in the sector with regional rival Morocco, and diversify its economy in the face of falling oil revenues, which had been the source of over 90% of its export earnings.
Morocco’s own bet on the automobile industry has paid off.
It is now the country’s top export sector after the Renault-Nissan group opened two factories in the kingdom in 2012 and 2019, followed by its rival PSA, which opened one in 2019, attracted by incentivising fiscal and customs policies.
But Algeria’s industry became embroiled in controversy from early 2017, when authorities started to denounce as “disguised imports” the practice of foreign carmakers bringing in “semi knocked-down” (SKD) units.
SKD units are partially stripped down at the origin and reassembled on arrival, requiring minimal labour input.
The government investigated Hyundai after images spread on social media showed almost completely-built imported models that required little more work than putting on the wheels.
In July 2017, former industry minister Mahdjoub Bedda, who is now in prison on graft charges related to the wider scandal, suspended all new car assembly projects.
After Bouteflika, under pressure from mass demonstrations, was ousted by the army in April 2019, several assembly plant bosses were convicted of corruption.
His successor, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, pledged to review the entire auto sector as soon as he came to power in December that year.
“Some projects cannot be described as an industry because they are simply disguised imports,” he charged the day after his election.
Algeria then banned the import of spare parts for assembly plants, sounding the death knell for the young industry already struggling after the incarceration of its key executives.
Volkswagen suspended production indefinitely in December 2019 and put 700 employees on technical unemployment.
In May 2020, the Algerian subsidiary of South Korea’s Kia closed its assembly line, throwing 1 200 employees out of work.
The automobile scandal was at the heart of the first major corruption trials of the post-Bouteflika era.
They exposed that companies owned by tycoons linked to Bouteflika’s inner circle were favoured and benefited from undue privileges, such as state incentives and tax exemptions.
The scandal led to the imprisonment of former prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal and two industry ministers.
The ex-premiers were convicted of “misappropriation of public funds, abuse of power and granting undue privileges” as well as illegal financing of ailing Bouteflika’s aborted 2019 reelection bid.
Corporate heavyweights, such as Mahieddine Tahkout, owner of the Hyundai plant, and VW factory owner Mourad Oulmi, also received heavy prison sentences in separate cases.
Seeking to prevent a repetition of the debacle, the government adopted new rules last August, notably requiring that vehicles sold in Algeria contain 30 percent locally manufactured parts.
Industry experts have, however, warned that such rules are unrealistic.
“It is illusory to claim to be setting up an automobile industry without (local) know-how,” said journalist Mourad Saadi, who has reported on the auto industry since 1999.
Saadi said the automobile assembly sector had failed mainly because Algeria lacks suppliers who can manufacture locally made parts.
Ali, the industry minister, already under fire for delays in drawing up the new rules, recently spoke of talks “with German and other global operators to launch a real industry for tourist and utility vehicles”.
But, for the moment, no manufacturers have taken the plunge back into Algeria.
Mohamed Yadadden, a former executive turned consultant, said setting up “a real production plant requires on average of five to 10 years to respond to the industrial challenges”.
He also said it would need to build at least 150 000 units a year to guarantee profitability - no mean feat in Algeria, a country of 43 million people, where total demand is estimated at 450 000 units a year.