Morocco's trade and industry minister in Italy

Moroccan minister of trade, industry and handicraft, Alami Tazi, started on Tuesday a two-day visit to Italy which is hosting a Moroccan-Italian business workshop.

Tazi will meet several Italian officials, including ministers of trade and industry and of foreign trade.

The Moroccan-Italian workshop is gathering in Bologna business delegations from the two countries at the initiative of the two countries' offices of industrial development.

During a dinner banquet hosted in his honor by Italian under-secretary of state for industry, the Moroccan minister deplored the low level of bilateral trade and of Italian investments in the kingdom. Italian companies, he said, represent only 6% of foreign enterprises operating in Morocco. He added that the production, exports and employment rates of Italian enterprises in Morocco account respectively for 5%, 10% and 7% while Morocco's economy offers a package of advantages that ought to be seized.

He stressed that 16% of industrial enterprises in Morocco have a foreign capital contributing 34% of industrial production, 36% of exports, 42% in terms of industrial investments and 34% of job creation.