FOM Newsletter January 2003
Morocco Week in Review January 17 2003

RABAT, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The Moroccan economy is expected to grow by 5.5 percent this year against an earlier forecast of 4.5 percent due to a promising early agricultural output after abundant rainfalls, a government minister said on Tuesday. "Following the recent rains, (gross domestic product) growth will be close to 6.0 percent, 5.5 percent to be precise," the official MAP news agency quoted Finance and Privatization Minister Fathallah Oualalou as saying during a meeting with visiting French Foreign Trade Minister Francois Loos.  Last year, GDP growth stood at 4.4 percent, down from 6.5 percent in 2001.   The amount of rain can make or break the growth of the Moroccan economy, which relies heavily on agriculture, a sector which employs 40 percent of the 10-million workforce and contributes to up to 20 percent of GDP estimated at $41 billion.  Analysts say Morocco needs to sustain an annual economic growth of at least 6.0 percent to make serious headway in eradicating rising unemployment and poverty. ($1=10.112 dirhams) ((Reporting by Souhail Karam, editing by David Christian-Edwards; rabat.newsroom@reuters.com; +212-37 720065))

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. and Moroccan negotiators plan Tuesday to launch talks on a bilateral free trade zone, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said Friday. USTR Robert Zoellick and Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taib Fassi-Fihri plan to meet in Washington to kick off negotiations for what would be the first U.S. free trade agreement with a North African country.  Since Congress granted President George W. Bush stronger trade negotiating authority last year, the U.S. has concluded free trade agreements with Singapore and Chile. It has also begun talks on an agreement with five Central American countries as well as preliminary discussions with five Southern African countries.  -By Campion Walsh, Dow Jones Newswires; 1-202-862-9291; campion.walsh@dowjones.com

RABAT, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A French government minister cautioned Morocco on Tuesday against negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States while seeking better trade deals with the European Union. "You cannot aim at both things, you have to decide which one you choose," Foreign Trade Minister Francois Loos said. Loos, speaking at a news conference at the end of a two-day visit to Morocco, said he told Moroccan officials there may be a contradiction in their approach. "You cannot say you want a closer partnership with the EU and at the same time sign a free trade agreement with the U.S.," he said. "This is a political choice deprived of any economic foundation. It can be a waste of time".  The first round of talks between Morocco and the U.S. over a free trade agreement (FTA) is expected to start at the end of the month in Washington.  Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally, would be the second Arab country after Jordan to have an FTA with Washington. The EU accounts for two thirds of the North African country's foreign trade and France is its main trading partner. Morocco signed a partnership accord with Brussels in 1995 for a gradual dismantling of trade barriers by 2012.  Loos said Moroccans should realise that conditions offered by the EU might be more advantageous. "Caution! The constraints with the U.S. can be more difficult," he said. ((Reporting by Gilles Trequesser; Reuters Messaging:gilles.trequesser.reuters.com@reuters.net; +212-37 720065))

Morocco determined to make handicapped persons full-fledged citizens Morocco

, Culture, 1/15/2003 Morocco's Secretary of State in charge of family, solidarity and social action, Yasmina Baddou, said that Morocco is determined to make of its handicapped persons, full-fledged citizens, enjoying the society's full gamut of rights. In an interview published, on Tuesday, by Moroccan paper in French "Aujourd'hui le Maroc," Baddou said her department, while endeavouring to prevent different sorts of disability, will fight in partnership with other concerned departments diseases, considered as the major causes of disability.  Commending actions led by NGOs in this field, Baddou noted that NGOs are "unavoidable bridges" at the grass-root level. "We are currently working on a data base that will feature all NGOs working in the handicapped people sector as well as in sheltering centers," she added. A web site will be launched to help handicapped persons and their families have all necessary information, she said. Touching on the government's strategy in terms of solidarity, she said that her department's actions will zero in on a certain social category, as well as specific institutions like those of aged people, handicapped persons, homeless and abandoned children. The scope of our action will also touch the fight against social scourges like poverty, with the aim to instill a new culture of solidarity, based on the evolution of the Moroccan society and the challenges it is called upon to meet, she said.

International Forum in Casablanca on Female Managers

"Female heads of Enterprise: Investment and partnership" is the theme of an international forum to be held February 20-22 in Casablanca with several businesswomen from Morocco and abroad attending. The encounter, sponsored by the Moroccan Association of Female Heads of Enterprises (AEFM), seeks to encourage economic partnership, promote the creation of enterprises by women, inform participants on the enterprise's legal, administrative and fiscal environment and contribute to foster investment in Morocco. Conferences and workshops on the firms' management, creation and financing are featured during the Forum

The Moroccan Health department has okayed the building in Casablanca of a laboratory by the World-famed Roche company. The decision was announced at a meeting in Rabat between Moroccan Health Minister, Biadillah Mohamed Sheikh, and the CEO of Roche Lab's subsidiary in Morocco, Sami Zerelli. The plant will be built over 10,075 square meters and will require US$ 13 million, including 8 million already allotted. To move forward with the planed project, the minister announced the setting up of a joint committee including representatives of the ministries of finance and of health to screen at the earliest the project and the hike of some locally manufactured Roche lab's products.

The Moroccan House of Representatives (lower chamber of parliament) on Tuesday passed a draft bill for the liberalization of the tobacco sector. Under the draft bill, passed by 63 votes for and 41 against, Morocco will liberalize unprocessed tobacco production and exportation. Morocco will start liberalizing the importation of unprocessed tobacco and the production and exportation of processed tobacco starting January 2005. The Moroccan state will keep its monopoly over processed tobacco imports and distribution till 2007. Moroccan finance and privatization minister, Fathallah Ouallou, said the projected liberalization seeks to attract the interest of foreign investors in the planned privatization of the state-owned tobacco company (Regie des Tabacs). The company contributes nearly 6 billion dirhams (roughly US$ 600 mln) to the state budget annually. It employs 2,400 persons. Almost 120,000 people live on cigarette selling in Morocco. The company produces 25 brands. Some 6,500 farmers plant tobacco in Morocco, which stretches over 5,000 hectares.

Negotiations between Morocco and the European Union on the agricultural component of the association agreement, that opened in Rabat Tuesday, are moving forward but more encounters are needed to reach a balanced agreement, said the Moroccan delegation. Moroccan negotiators said the two sides are willing to reach an agreement but each team of negotiators needs to refer to authorities concessions and gains. They explained that negotiations are stumbling over technical data regarding some products and to the reciprocity rule provided for in the association agreement. The meeting is part of Morocco's Association accord with the EU that provides for the creation of a Free Trade Zone by year 2012. Europeans want a total openness while Morocco want the reciprocity principle to be applied with all the shades of meanings contained in the agreement, they said. This means that Morocco's development level should be taken into account as more than half of the population lives in rural areas, in addition to the labor force of the agri-food industry and of other associated activities. The Moroccan negotiators also underscore that in these difficult negotiations, Morocco is alone up against a grouping of 15 states, the world's strongest agricultural power.  As they wound up their fifth round of negotiations, Moroccan and European delegations cited "considerable breakthroughs" and were upbeat over the possibility of reaching a balanced agreement. "We have not yet finished because we had to handle a large number of products (a total of 400 products).," said the negotiators, who agreed to meet again in February. Discussions are long, strenuous and difficult, said a Moroccan negotiator, expressing hope that Europeans will understand efforts made by Morocco, stages covered and difficulties to convince Moroccan farmers. At the opening of negotiations on Tuesday, the Moroccan chief negotiator said if the two sides fail to reach a mutually satisfactory outcome "we will simply refuse the European offer and call off the negotiations sine die." He explained that Morocco wants a greater accessibility of its agricultural products to European markets, recalling that the creation of a free trade area implies the opening of both the Moroccan and European markets.

Morocco will take over from Venezuela the chairmanship of G77 plus China at a ceremony this week in New York. Moroccan Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister, Mohamed Benaissa, is expected in New York on Thursday to attend the ceremony, the Moroccan Foreign department said in a release. Benaissa will have talks in the fringes of the ceremony with the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and with other UN officials. Morocco was elected to the chairmanship of G77 plus China for 2003, during a Group's meeting convened on November 19. In this capacity, Morocco will lead the Group and speak on its behalf during all UN meetings dealing with economic and social matters. The Group of 77 (G-77) was established in 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. Beginning with the first Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 in Algiers in 1967 which adopted the Charter of Algiers, a permanent institutional structure gradually developed which led to the creation of Chapters of the Group of 77 in Rome (FAO), Vienna (UNIDO), Paris (UNESCO), Nairobi (UNEP) and the Group of 24 in Washington, D.C. (IMF and World Bank). Although the membership of the G-77 has increased to 133 countries plus China, the original name was retained because of its historic significance. As the largest Third World coalition in the United Nations, the Group of 77 provides the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests and enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the United Nations system, and promote economic and technical cooperation among developing countries.

RABAT, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The Moroccan cabinet on Thursday endorsed a bill introducing in law the concept of "terrorist acts", crimes which could carry the death penalty, a minister said. "Terrorist" crimes have previously been interpreted under Moroccan law as sabotage, use of explosives, destabilisation of state security or subversive attacks.  "Under the draft bill, (perpetrators of) terrorist acts can face up to the death penalty. But the sentence can be suspended depending on the seriousness of the terrorist act," Minister in charge of Relations with Parliament Mohamed Saad El Alami said. He told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting the text would put Moroccan laws in line with international laws against terrorism. The proposal coincides with the trial of three suspected Saudi members of al Qaeda on charges of plotting to blow up U.S. and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar and attack tourist sites in the North African country. The trial, which started in October and involves seven Moroccan accomplices, will resume on Friday. Toufiq Moussaif, lawyer for the three Saudis, said the bill showed Morocco "has joined for good the global war on terror, led by the United States". But he said the law would not apply to the ten suspects as it could not be applied retroactively. The suspects have been accused of planning "terrorist attacks" but were charged with "criminal conspiracy, wilful homicide and attempted sabotage". They could face the death penalty. To become law, the bill will have to be approved by parliament and then a cabinet meeting chaired by King Mohammed.

LONDON [MENL] -- Moroco is advancing toward completion of its first nuclear reactor. Western diplomatic sources said Rabat will begin operations of its nuclear facility by 2004. They said the facility will cost $15 million and will comprise a power generator capable of producing one kilowatt of electricity. Morocco ordered the nuclear facility in 1988 for agricultural and medical research. The facility is being manufactured by the U.S. company American Atomics. Officials said the nuclear fuel required for the facility will be imported. Officials said the facility would come under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. They said the facility would use nuclear fuel that could combine hydrogen and zirconium.

AMMAN, Jan 11 (AFP) - Trade ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia on Saturday signed an agreement here to create a four-nation free trade zone. The ministers said they capped negotiations first launched two years ago aimed at developing inter-Arab industrial and agriculture cooperation and promoting trade with Europe. Jordanian Trade and Industry Minister Salah al-Bashir said the free trade zone would boost Arab exports to markets in the European Union, with which all four countries are already bound by association agreements. Bashir added other Arab states are welcome to join the new four-party free trade agreement which will be formally ratified by the foreign ministers of the countries later this month or in February in the Moroccan city of Agadir where the trade talks were first launched in May 2001."This agreement is a message to the whole world that a new page has turned  among Arab countries to create a new (trade) block," Egypt's Foreign Trade Minister Youssef Butros Ghali told reporters here. "It creates an institutional base that will enable these four Arab countries to create a united front for free trade with Europe and that will complement each other's industrial output," Butros Ghali said. The trade ministers of Morocco and Tunisia -- Mustafa Mashhuri and Mohsen al-Arwi respectively -- also attended the signing ceremony which brought to an end 15 months of arduous negotiations between the four countries. Under the terms of the free trade agreement, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are expected to lower tariffs between them gradually until they are totally scrapped by January 2006. Customs duties between the four countries are expected to be decreased by 65 percent this year.

str-hkb/np Jordan-Arab-trade

Return to Friends of Morocco Home Page