Morocco and Senegal want new approach to co-development

King Mohammed VI said Morocco and Senegal could give more credibility to new shapes of co-development going beyond the obsolete assistance to fragile or weakened economies.

In a dinner-reception in honor of Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, the king said common roots and long-standing communion account for enduring human and active solidarity between the two people and ever-thriving cooperation geared towards economic development spanning to every field.

He insisted on strengthening democracy to meet modern times challenges and wrestle a fair rank in industrial, trade and financial flows which now determine genuine growth saying relations between the African continent and developed world should be better fathomed and mastered.

The king renewed his call for a global and fair cooperation frame saying that the Euro-African summit, held in Cairo early last month, could be the first stage towards "more promising prospects" in exchanges between Africa and its European partners.

President Wade voiced the wish to see the two countries raise the level of economic and financial cooperation to the standards of excellent friendship and brotherly relations between the two people making of Dakar and Rabat a model cooperation axis for the African continent.

The head of state said Morocco has a role to play in the battle for economic development in Senegal underscoring the need for wider trade flows.

In the first three-quarters of 1999, exports to Senegal totaled $ 12.4 million, a 42.6 % increase compared to the same period of the preceding year. Moroccan imports stood at a mere $ 420,000, a slump of 56.6 %, the Moroccan Change Office figures show.