King Hassan II receives Italian foreign minister
Morocco-Italy, Politics, 7/28/1998

King Hassan II received on Monday at the Royal palace of Skhirat (Rabat suburbs) Italian Foreign Minister, Lamberto Dini, who is currently on a 3-day official visit to Morocco.

Dini, who arrived Sunday in Morocco, had previously conferred with Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, Economy and Finance Minister, Fathallah Oualalou, and held a working session with Foreign Minister Abdellatif Filali.

Talks focused mainly on ways to enhance bilateral economic and financial cooperation and the two countries are expected to conclude two cooperation accords during Dini's visit.

The issue of illegal immigration and Morocco's positive role in playing down the phenomenon were also raised during Dini's talks with Moroccan officials.

Scores of Moroccan candidates for illegal immigration are regularly arrested or fished out dead as they try to enter Spain via the Gibraltar strait or Italy via Tunisia.

Italy hopes to find a way to fight, in collaboration with Moroccan authorities, illegal immigration.

Lamberto Dini told Monday the Moroccan television channel "2M" that Moroccan-Italian cooperation in matters of fighting against illegal immigration is "excellent."

Morocco has a 115,000 strong expatriate community in Italy, the largest foreign community in the European country. Most of these Moroccans work in the industrial and services sectors.

Lamberto Dini also told "2M" that he raised with Economy and Finance Minister, Fathallah Oualalou, the issue of converting Morocco's debt to Italy.

Italaly's ambassador to Morocco, Guido Martini, told Moroccan "L'Opinion" daily that the issue of Morocco's external debt would be on Dini's agenda. He added that once this objective is achieved, Morocco will be the first country to benefit from such a move from Italy.

Rabat seeks to reach an accord with Rome to convert Moroccan debt into investments, similar to the covenants already concluded with Spain and France.

In December 1996, Spain decided to convert 520 million dollars of Moroccan debt into investment projects in the country. The sum represented 40 percent of Rabat's overall debt owed to Madrid which stands at 1.3 billion dollars.

Earlier in 1996, France had opened the way for the reconversion of Moroccan debt when it decided to convert 600 million French Francs FF (120 million dollars) into French participation in some Moroccan public and semi-public firms. In addition to this sum, France had canceled 400 million FF (80 million dollars) of Moroccan debt to France, which stands at 24 billion FF (4.8 billion dollars).

Previous Stories:
  Italian foreign minister arrives in Morocco   (7/27/1998)
  Moroccan premier denies reports of government reshuffle   (7/24/1998)
  Italy's foreign minister visits Morocco for closer cooperation   (7/22/1998)

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