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  • Mar 11, 2024
  • 2 minutes

(Reuters) – Morocco’s King Mohammed urged his cash-strapped government on Monday to tap financing from Gulf Arab sovereign wealth funds to help finance projects Rabat hopes will help it meet pressing social needs.
An invitation last year for Arab kingdoms Morocco and Jordan to join the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) signalled that monarchies in the region were trying to strengthen their links in the face of the Arab Spring uprisings.
In November, wealth funds from Qatar and Kuwait led pledges to invest almost $3 billion in Morocco’s tourism sector.
The North African economy is facing economic hardships due mainly to repercussions from the crisis in the euro zone, its main economic partner, and after drought hit its labour-intensive agricultural sector this year.
A spending spree last year aimed at containing a spillover from the Arab Spring revolts in the region has increased fiscal deficits and worsened a liquidity shortage in the domestic money market while foreign reserves shrank to cover just four months of import needs.
Celebrating the 13th anniversary of his enthronement on Monday, the king said the Islamist-led government should spend budget revenues carefully.
Morocco’s should also look to “access funding opportunities offered by foreign sovereign funds, especially investment funds in the Gulf sister nations,” he said, according to the English transcript of an address broadcast on state media.
Cooperation with these funds, he said, should “promote investment in all productive sectors and encourage partnership between businesses and government institutions”.
Besides tourism, the biggest foreign currency earner and the second-biggest employer, Rabat plans to develop its logistics, agricultural and industrial sectors, helping cut high poverty and unemployment rates.
The unfolding crisis in the euro zone has essentially narrowed Rabat’s financing options for such programmes to Gulf Arab monarchies. (Reporting By Souhail Karam; Editing by John Stonestreet)

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By Lesley Wroughton and Souhail Karam Aug 4 (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday approved loans to Morocco and Jordan after they were hit by costlier energy bills, economic restraints from regional instability and an escalating euro zone crisis. The IMF approved a $6.2 billion precautionary line of credit for Morocco over two years, which it said the government would treat as “insurance” in case economic conditions deteriorate and it faced sudden financing needs. The IMF board also approved a $2 billion loan to Jordan, announced last month. Jordan’s finances were hurt by regional protests and supply disruptions from Egypt forced it to switch from gas to more expensive oil for power generation. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Morocco’s economic policies have contributed to strong growth, low inflation and a resilient banking sector. But the country has been hard hit by a decline in trade from the euro zone. “High oil prices have contributed to a build-up of fiscal and external pressures,” Lagarde said. “The authorities have already taken action to address these vulnerabilities, and are committed to maintaining sound policies.” Lagarde said Jordan “is facing external and fiscal challenges stemming largely from exogenous shocks to its energy sector.” “These shocks have put pressure on the external accounts, pushed up the deficits of the central government and the public electricity company, and exposed structural weaknesses in fiscal and energy policies.” Jordan’s economic growth slowed to 3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year due to sluggish private sector growth. Turmoil from the Arab Spring in neighboring countries including Syria and Egypt have also cast a shadow over investment, while ramped up social spending to quell unrest has further strained public finances. In Rabat, Morocco said the IMF credit should give comfort to foreign lenders, investors and rating agencies, and allow it to tap international capital markets at favorable borrowing terms. CHRONIC LIQUIDITY SHORTAGE In a statement carried by the state-run MAP news agency, the finance ministry said the economy “remains vulnerable to external shocks mostly linked to a worsening recession in the euro zone and a new surge” in commodity prices. Morocco’s fiscal and current account deficits surged last year to their highest levels in many years and analysts are worried about Rabat’s ability to quickly reverse the trend. While the Moroccan currency is not convertible, the rise in those deficits exacerbated a chronic shortage in liquidity in a domestic market that is the state’s biggest creditor. After bad weather hit its agricultural sector, the North African country is now bracing for higher food import costs after drought slashed its farming output. Its foreign currency reserves barely cover four months of import needs. The rise in the budget deficit followed a series of handouts, which included public sector wage hikes and higher spending on subsidies last year aimed at containing a spillover from Arab Spring revolts. Authorities have promised to start reducing spending on subsidies, costs of which amounted to roughly the budget deficit last year, but indicated the process may take until 2016. IMF mission chief to Morocco, Dominique Guillaume, said the country’s international reserves were still at a “comfortable level” and their decline was due to seasonal factors. He said tourism revenues and migrant remittances usually pick up in the second half of the year, when several bilateral loans also come due to the government. “We really don’t see there is a balance of payment need for Morocco at this stage,” Guillaume added. The Washington-based IMF said Morocco had already taken steps in June to reform subsidies, which will lead to higher fuel prices. “We are quite confident that they have a broad set of measures on both the revenue and spending side to reduce the deficit to 3 percent over the next few years and strengthen fiscal sustainability,” Guillaume added.

  • 11 Marzo 2024
  • 2 minutes
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Morocco, the North African nation that supplies the bulk of India’s needs for phosphate, a key ingredient in fertilisers, is looking for expansion in ties to include more joint ventures, from automotives to information technology to the hospitality industry, its ambassador in an interview said. Morocco, a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament, is “contributing to India’s food security” but wants its relations to expand beyond supply of phosphates, of which it holds two-thirds of global reserves, to investment in manufacturing and services. “India is our top trading partner in Asia and the third largest globally. We have set an excellent example of South-South cooperation. These ties now must expand. There is a great scope for that as well,” Moroccan Ambassador to India Larbi Reffouh said on the eve of his country’s National Day Monday. “There are already two major joint ventures between our two sides in the broad area of fertilisers. But scope exists in virtually every field – from automotives and textiles to agro-processing and information technology,” Reffouh said in an interview. A country of 32 million people that is part of what is called the Maghreb region, it shared bilateral trade worth USD 1.6 billion with India last year, and accounts for some 60 percent of the country’s phosphatic needs, a mineral that primarily used in the manufacture of di-ammonium phosphate, an important plant nutrient. “In many ways, Morocco is contributing to India’s food security,” the ambassador said emphatically. India’s Aditya Birla Group and the Tatas have an equal joint venture with a state-run company of Morocco at Jorf Lasfar, some 150 km from Casablanca, to produce 430,000 tonnes of phosphoric acid, nearly all of which is exported to India. This apart, Morocco has also invested in Paradeep Phosphates for a unit in Orissa with a capacity of over 2 million tonnes per annum of phosphatic fertilisers. The Zuari Group and the Government of India also hold stakes in the company. According to the ambassador, Morocco which has 70 pristine tourist destinations, also seeks investments from India in the hospitality sector, particularly for construction and maintenance of hotels and said help is at hand even for acquisition of land. In fact, the Tata group already runs a luxury hotel in Marrakech, and hopes to open another in Casablanca by the end of this year. The ambassador explained that among the incentives given to foreign investors in his country, include freehold land ownership and financial support in acquisition of land for factories, modern infrastructure and liberal taxation and other norms. Under the Moroccan law, local and international investors are treated equally. Whatever incentives are available for national investors are also for overseas investors. Morocco is the largest recipient of foreign investment in North Africa. It received USD 18 billion such capital between 2000 and 2009, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Majority of it is in fertiliser and minerals. India and Morocco have set up a joint commission to facilitate two-way investments and trade. “The next meeting of the joint commission will be held sometime in the first quarter of 2013,” the ambassador said. Ambassador Reffouh said Morocco and India also share common vision in a host of both regional and multilateral forums, notably in the United Nations where the two nations are currently non-permanent members of the Security Council. “We appreciate that India was among the very first countries to recognise Moroccan independence. It was also the first to establish diplomatic ties and open an embassy in our country,” he said. “Our ties, in fact, date back to the 14th century when our explorer Ibn Butata travelled to India.” (Gyanendra Kumar Keshri can be reached at gyanendra.k@ians.in and biz@ians.in)

  • 11 Marzo 2024
  • 2 minutes

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Iscos Marche siamo una ODV di cooperazione allo sviluppo presenti attualmente in  in Marocco, Etiopia, Senegal Eritrea e Albania

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