Moroccan-Algerian economic, social cooperation probed

Moroccan-Algerian cooperation in economic and social realms was probed at a meeting in Rabat Thursday between Moroccan minister of social economy, SME and handicraft, Ahmed Lahlimi, and Algerian minister of reforms coordination, Noureddine Boukrouh.

The meeting also covered the economic situation in the Maghreb, and provided opportunity to trade experience and viewpoints in a bid to overcome obstacles and build up a firm Maghreban economic grouping, able to take up challenges and play an efficient role on the international scene.

The two officials voiced their states' will to give a new momentum to bilateral cooperation, to trade experience and conduct joint actions in the economic and social sectors.

Lahlimi recalled the royal directives stressing the need to consolidate cooperation and foster contacts between the two states to give Moroccan-Algerian relations a dimension reflecting the firmness of their ties.

The Algerian official, who is visiting Morocco to take part in the two-day forum on investment in North Africa that opened in Casablanca Thursday, also conferred with the Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi.

The forum, attended by experts and government officials from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania and Sudan, is debating means to drain more investments to the continent and identify obstacles to the flow of these investments.