Moroccan and Canadian MPS Call for Free Trade Zone
Morocco-Canada, Politics, 1/22/2003

Moroccan and Canadian legislators, called in Rabat Tuesday for the set up of a free trade zone between the two countries to enhance their trade which remains below their potential.

Moroccan MPs, who were meeting a group of Canadian legislators currently on a visit to the kingdom, said the two countries need to service a regular maritime line and increase air links.

The parliamentarians also called for swapping Morocco's debts towards Canada into investments, and exchanging more business missions.

On the same day, the Canadian delegation conferred with Moroccan prime minister, Driss Jettou.

After the meeting, Jettou told MAP the Canadian parliamentarians hailed Morocco's efforts to consolidate democracy and promote freedoms and human rights.

The Premier said the MPs's visit to southern provinces will help find out about Morocco's efforts to provide this region with the necessary infrastructure, and how the population of the region is attached to its monarch and to the territorial integrity of its country, and how they reject any solution (to the Sahara issue) that does not take into account these two principles.can southern provinces.

"Canada is a great trade partner of Morocco. Our trade represents some 270 million dollars, but with a coverage rate of only 14%, Morocco suffers a trade deficit in its exchanges with Canada, Jettou said.

The Canadian MPs also met head of the Moroccan Consultative Council of Human Rights (CCDH), Omar Azziman, who briefed them on the Council's mission and role in defending human rights and consolidating the rule of law since its setup in 1990.

The head of the CCDH denounced the inadmissible sequestration of Moroccans in Tindouf (Algeria), and the inhuman and humiliating treatment they sustain, calling the Canadian law-makers to work for their liberation.

Head of the visiting delegation, Bernard Patry, hailed Morocco's advances in the field of human rights, and its bold handling of past human rights violations.

We count on our colleagues in the Canadian parliament to demand the release of Moroccans detained in Tindouf, some of them for more than 20 years, Speaker of the Moroccan House of Representatives (parliament lower chamber), Abdelouahed Radi urged the Canadian delegation.

Morocco values Canada's support to the UN secretary general's effort aiming to find a political breakthrough to the Moroccan Sahara issue, Radi said.

The visiting delegation, made up of 20 MPs, including 6 senators, started Monday a one-week visit to the Kingdom.

Previous Stories:
  Over 20 canadian legislators visit Morocco   (1/21/2003)
  Quebec Says Sahara Issue is a Moroccan-Algerian Problem   (5/16/2002)
  Moroccan premier meets Canadian peer   (4/5/2002)

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