Cabinet council adopts draft finance bill

The Moroccan Cabinet council adopted on Wednesday the 1998-1999 draft finance bill that will be debated at the parliament after it is adopted by the ministers' council.

The draft grants priority to social sectors and to employment and does not stipulate any tax increase. Under this draft, the budget deficit will near three percent.

Spokesman for the government, Khalid Alioua, said during the question time at the Chamber of Representatives (the lower house of the Moroccan bicameral parliament) that the finance bill provides for measures encouraging enterprises to hire university graduates. These measures are mainly related to the fiscal aspect, he said.

Alioua, who is also minister of social development, solidarity, employment and vocational training, said the unemployment problem affecting high degree holders "is not a conjuncture problem" but is related to the very structure of the Moroccan economy, which is why it is impossibile to settle this issue through administrative decisions, Map reported.

Scores of idle university graduates, Ph.D holders and engineers started on Wednesday a sit-in before Alioua's ministry to claim "an urgent solution to their problem".

One of the protesters' delegates said the sit-in was decided after the failure of several attempts at dialogue.