New sectors will open up to competition, Moroccan premier

The Moroccan government is determined to accelerate the process of opening up new sectors to competition and carry on the program of privatizing public enterprises, Moroccan premier Driss Jettou said Thursday in Rabat.

Speaking at the international symposium organized under the theme "State, regulation and independent authorities," Jettou said several sectors in Morocco have already been privatized, including telecommunications, electricity production and distribution and public transport.

The government will prepare other sectors for competition since their liberalization will help Morocco reap dividends, attract further foreign investment and highly improve the quality of services, he went on, adding that public industrial and trade services run by the state or local collectivities will be progressively "transferred to the private sector whenever this will draw profit in terms of investments, job opportunities and quality.."

According to the minister, this strategy will also be applied to the construction of new infrastructures, water distribution networks, electricity and sanitation, waste collection and public transport that will gradually be transferred to the private sector.

The state will however retain its regulation authority in most sectors that will be opened to competition in order to follow up their evolution, security and the continuous flow of investments for national and foreign economic operators.

The objective of this symposium that will last until Friday is to debate the concept of regulation, its implementation and the mechanisms allowing the opening of some sectors which remained so far controlled by the public sector.