Morocco-US Council on Trade and Investment holds annual meeting in Rabat
The Morocco - US council on trade and investment held its annual meeting in Rabat on Friday.
In an opening address, Moroccan Minister of Economy and Finance Fathallah Oualalou said that US private funds and investments in Morocco reached in 1997 nearly 3.5 billion dirhams (more than $350 million) compared to 307.4 million dh in 1996.
The amount of US private investment in Morocco grew tenfold between 1996 and 1997, making of the United States the second-largest investor in Morocco with 28% of overall foreign investments in the kingdom.
Oualalou who surveyed Morocco's efforts to lower obstacles to investments, especially at the institutional and regulatory levels urged the council members to upgrade partnership. "Morocco and the US have always had excellent relations at the political level. It is up to you within this council and to us as political actors, to endeavor through economic partnership to consolidate these relations," Oualalou said.
President and chief executive officer of the council, Lester Pollack, said that the meeting will debate an action plan for 1999 and that the plan seeks to multiply by more than twofold the flow of US investments in Morocco.
US Ambassador to Rabat Edward Gabriel described the meeting as a new effort to energize US investments in Morocco. The US seeks to take part in Morocco's development rather than do business, the diplomat added, noting that some 20 projects in partnership with the Moroccan public and private sectors will be carried out in 1999.
Morocco has all assets to be in the region the country having the largest trade exchanges with the United States, Gabriel said calling on Americans and Moroccans to work together in this respect.
Since it was set up in 1994 and since it opened its offices in Casablanca, New York and Washington in 1996, the council has tirelessly endeavored to promote US investments in Morocco and to upgrade trade exchanges.
The council offices provided during the course of the current year assistance to some 170 US and 162 Moroccan enterprises, seeking information, partners and joint ventures.
The council also sponsored 69 visits of U.S investors to Morocco and waged a large-scale media campaign to publicize Morocco in the USA.
In 1997, Moroccan firms exports to the USA totalled 1.57 billion dirhams, ie. an increase of 10 percent over 1996 and 22 percent over 1994.
The remittances of Moroccan expatriates in the USA continued their upward trend since 1994 to reach (around $ 28.2) 260 million dirhams in 1997, ie; 2.5 % more than the figure recorded in 1994.