[adventured]

Algeria was not a very rich country before the drop in oil prices, even though they had certainly climbed a long ways during the ten year oil boom.

Their GDP per capita is around #100 in the world. It ranks below Jamaica, Serbia, Fiji, Namibia, Angola, Iraq, etc.

Their total GDP, pre oil drop, ranked them around #50 in the world, but they're #34 in population.

Before the oil drop they were a lower middle nation in terms of wealth, nowhere near rich.

[Dinoso]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say they were a rich country, but had the means to advance rapidly compared to other third world countries. Algeria had 186B$ of cash and was debt free. It even lent 5B$ to the IMF[1].

[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/algeria-contribute-5b-imf-1846...

[smcl]

I think compared to other nearby Sahara/Sahel countries, they were relatively rich