King Hassan announces two-year employment plan
Morocco, Economics, 7/9/1999

King Hassan II announced on Thursday an employment plan extending between 1999 and 2001 to provide jobs to 60,000 young graduates annually.

In a speech aired live by the Moroccan radio and television stations on the occasion of the Youth Day, which marks this year the king's 70th birthday, the king said funds needed for this plan will be earmarked by local councils, state enterprises, offices and services. The king further said that he will expound in his next August speech results reached by a special commission set up to look into reforms to education and training.

Morocco's average unemployment rate stands at 13%, a minister said this month, quoting a study conducted by the Moroccan employment department of 60,000 urban and rural households.

In a previous speech, the king had said that the unemployment issue is Morocco's second priority after the issue of territorial integrity.

In Thursday's speech, the sovereign also praised the transparency and rigor that marked the recent operation which granted, for $1.08 billion, Morocco's second GSM mobile phone license to Spanish-Portuguese-Moroccan consortium "Medi-telecoms."

He announced that out of this sum, $400 million will go to the state coffers and $700 million will be deposited in a special account to finance job-generating projects with the contribution of state enterprises, and Moroccan and foreign private economic operators.

He stated that these projects will target, first of all, social housing, breaking the isolation of some areas, electrification, drinking water supply to the rural world, dams building, irrigation, development of the fishing sector and construction of highways.

These projects that embrace a variety of sectors will give a new impetus to the Moroccan economy and Morocco will become in 2001 a large construction site of projects that will generate wealth for all Moroccans, the king said.

Previous Stories:
  Morocco's upper house adopts laws on creation of social agency and prisons   (7/7/1999)
  13 percent unemployment average in Morocco   (7/5/1999)
  Morocco's 1999 GDP to grow by 0.2%   (6/25/1999)
  Moroccan unionist leader decries government's coldness in handling social problems   (6/25/1999)

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