Sustained job-generating growth tops government economic objectives
Morocco, Economics, 10/30/1998

The Moroccan government said its major objective targets high and sustained economic growth to generate jobs.

A high and sustained job-generating growth is the first objective of the economic policy of the government, Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi said in a speech read on his behalf by Economy and Finance Minister Fathallah Oualalou before a "Euromoney" conference held in Casablanca on capital markets and investments in Morocco.

The prime minister noted that the 1998-99 appropriation bill provides for a package of measures to back investors.

However, as the measures will not yield results with the persistence of administrative and other hindrances, the government decided, in a first stage, to set up an inter-ministerial commission to examine the shortcomings hindering investments, he said.

He announced that Morocco will set up a national agency for the promotion of investment. The agency will assist national and foreign investors in materializing their projects in Morocco and proposing measures to alleviate the administrative constraints botching investments.

Youssoufi had said in a recent circular to government members that measures will be taken against any executive accountable for an unjustified freeze of investment files in Morocco.

Long bureaucratic and administrative procedures have recurrently been mentioned as one of the major reasons behind the slowing down of the flow of foreign investments into Morocco.

Addressing the Casablanca meeting, Andre Azoulay, Advisor to King Hassan II for Economic and Financial Affairs, recalled that 14 international hotel companies have already installed branches in Morocco, a fact that testifies to the promising potential of the country.

Azoulay noted that Morocco has a reasonable deficit rate of 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) against 5 to 8 percent in countries hit by crisis.

He added that the Casablanca stock market is still a basically domestic place, as foreigners account for 5 to 6 percent of the bourse's capitalization.

Last year, Morocco attracted a record $1.2 billion in direct foreign investments, most of them from Saudi Arabia, France and Germany.

Official figures show that foreign private investments and loans to Morocco fell by about 56 percent during the first four months of 1998, dropping from 2.5 billion dirhams at the end of April 1997 to 1.10 billion at the end of April 1998.

Previous Stories:
  Disputes between security forces and unemployed graduates result in many injured   (10/28/1998)
  Morocco: Slow bureaucrats that harm investments and economy to be punished   (10/14/1998)
  Morocco's upper house endorses appropriations bill   (9/21/1998)

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