ALGERIA -Profile - Ahmed Benbitour.

Appointed by President Bouteflika as Prime Minister on Dec. 23, 1999, 53-year-old Benbitour moved fast to name a cabinet on Dec. 24. He said the new government would implement economic and other reforms aimed at putting an end to violence in the country.

As a former minister of energy and mines as well as of finance, Benbitour has experience in oil diplomacy. It is said that as soon as Bouteflika won the presidential elections, he had sounded out Benbitour, a technocrat, on the possibility of being appointed premier in the coming months. Benbitour replaced Ismail Hamdani.

Benbitour was named finance minister in April 1994. In that position he was at the forefront of negotiations with the IMF and Western donors for loans, export credits, debt reschedulings, etc. He was energy minister in the previous government of Redha Malek, appointed to the post in September 1993. But unlike is predecessor in that portfolio (Hacene Mefti), and the others before him, Benbitour did not have a background in Sonatrach or the energy sector. This may have been one reason for his replacement by Amar Makhloufi six months later.

Yet Benbitour was regarded by some observers as being generally more realistic in his assessment of things than Sonatrach's old hands were. He is an academic but practical economist and also held the post of deputy finance minister in charge of the treasury. During his term as energy minister, Benbitour's priority was to get foreign companies to increase Algeria's oil production capacity and to find new reserves. He was ready to give them better incentives than the ones his predecessor was willing to offer. Another top priority of his was to expand Algeria's gas export capacity.