Morocco, EU sign cooperation program
Morocco-European Union, Economics, 1/26/2002

Morocco and the European Union signed Thursday a cooperation program worth 426 Mln Euros, part of the MEDA financial cooperation for 2002-2004.

The program aims at supporting the economic reforms ushered in by Morocco in the fields of administration and transports, and financing development projects in other sectors.

Some 81 Mln Euros will be injected in the sector of administration, and 66 Mln will go to the sector of transport, said minister of economy, finance, privatization, and tourism, Fathallah Oulaalou, during the signing ceremony.

About 70 Mln Euros will be earmarked for the development of the Moroccan northern provinces, Oualalou said, deeming the amount short of the needs of these provinces, geographically close to Europe. Morocco and the EU will jointly set a development program to attract national and foreign investment to this region, he added.

Under the MEDA cooperation program, 111 million Euros will go to the private sector: 61 million Euros will be used to sharpen the competitive edge of the Moroccan economic fabric, and the remaining 50 millions will be spent on professional training in tourism, textile and new information and communication technologies.

Some 30 million Euros will subsidize the interest rates of the loans earmarked by the European Investment Bank to the sectors of sanitation and industrial pollution cleaning up, said Oulaalou.

Head of the European commission delegation in Rabat, ambassador Sean Doyle, signed the cooperation program on behalf of the European Union.

Previous Stories:
  EU-Morocco working group on the information society   (1/22/2002)
  European investment bank extends Morocco 40 mln euro loan for irrigation   (11/10/2001)
  EU trade commissioner meets Moroccan employers   (6/29/2001)

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