Morocco writes off debt and drops custom rights for least developed African countries
Morocco-Africa, Politics, 4/4/2000

King Mohammed VI announced Monday in Cairo Morocco's decision to write off the debt of least-developed African countries and scrapping of all custom barriers for imports from these countries.

The move stems from Morocco's faith in the solidarity spirit and is in harmony with the kingdom's African calling, said the king addressing the Africa-Europe Summit meeting in Cairo. Indebtedness still tops African concerns and requires strong resolve of European countries to settle the issue efficiently, whether by writing it off or by swapping debt and related service into investments, the sovereign said.

The summit, he went on, is a major and outstanding event taking place at the onset of the third millennium in which Africa has great expectations to remedy the dire situation it has been going through and give its people, as is the case for other people worldwide, assurance as to their future.

Today, he said, it is our responsibility in this summit to jointly ponder new approaches and methods to be the inception of an ambitious project providing new conditions likely to help Africa out of the state it is in starting with an all-out and final war against poverty.

The king stressed woes plaguing the continent and called for a review of previous conceptions which have shown their limits and translated into failure and inadequacy with reality before recalling the ambitious scheme suggested by his late father King Hassan II. King Hassan had called for the implementation of a global plan inspired from the program which helped rebuild Europe after Second World War.

King Mohammed VI also urged Europe to help launch realistic and earnest initiatives at the levels of European institutions and international organizations with no strings attached and taking into account specific African traits.

Previous Stories:
  African - European meeting to look into Africa's debt shortly   (4/3/2000)
  King Mohammed to attend Africa - Europe summit   (4/1/2000)
  Message from Morocco's king to president of Cape Verde   (3/30/2000)

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