Illegal emigration is result of north-south economic gap

Morocco imputed the escalating phenomenon of illegal emigration to the ever-widening gap in living conditions between the north and the south.

"How can we eradicate emigration, especially illegal emigration, while the gap persists between the north and the south of the Mediterranean?," Khalid Alioua wondered in an interview with the London-based Middle-East Broadcasting Center (MBC).

Khalid Alioua specified that "the per capita income in Europe is 40 times higher than that in Morocco."

For the Moroccan official, co-development, favoring the transfer of investments to southern countries is the best means to face up the phenomenon.

This is the suitable policy to spur economic growth and find jobs to jobless graduates, Alioua said.

Successive waves of Moroccan and African nationals are driven by joblessness and poverty to stealthily travel to Europe putting their lives at peril in the troubled waters of the 14-km long Gibraltar strait separating Morocco and Spain.

Khalid Alioua --who is also minister of social development, solidarity, employment and vocational training-- said the Youssoufi government's economic and social policy is crippled by the heavy burden of external debt which stands at $ 19 billion and by a high joblessness rate of 18 percent.

In order to relieve the country from these constraints, Alioua said the government is trying to convince the Paris Club to write off a part of Morocco's debt or at least swap it. The government is also trying to downsize the deficit to 2.5 percent, he added.

Alioua, who noted that the social fields absorbs 44 % of the state budget, underlined that the private sector has been closely associated to endeavors to do away with unemployment. He added that the private sector now generates 2,500 jobs monthly to jobless graduates, part of a government-tailored training-integration program.

The private sector provides 80 percent of jobs, while the state's role as employer has been limited, he said.