November 12, 2009
Morocco Investment Conference highlights opportunities for growth and progress
Posted on 6:43 PM by google
The first high level annual Morocco Investment Conference under the theme of "Opportunities for Growth and Progress" took place in the Mansion House, in the city of London.
Morocco has an extremely positive story to tell as UK business as delegates to the recent conference were informed.
The country’s ambitions in a range of sectors from agriculture and tourism to education and training and renewable energies were all unveiled in detail at the one-day event.
Following several years of enacting progressive reforms, the Kingdom is presently engaged in an ambitious effort to diversify its economy and modernise its infrastructure. Its network of roads and motorways, airports, railways and waterways are now under full development. New ports, such as Tanger-Med and Nador West, along with many new resorts and marinas, are in various stages of development.
Hosted by the Lord Mayor of London and driven forward by the Ambassador of Morocco to the United Kingdom, H H Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui, the conference saw the largest delegation of Moroccan officials from government and business executives arriving in London, indicating the importance given to the event.
Britain is already a key economic partner for Morocco within the European Union and British firms operate in an impressive range of sectors. However, there are many more opportunities available and new openings to develop and deepen the ties between the two countries are emerging. Hence, the need for such a conference that brought together key decision makers from both sides.
The conference brought to the attention of British investors and the wider business community the enormous transformation in the Moroccan economy over recent years and the new opportunities opening up across a wide spectrum.
Morocco was represented by four senior ministers who each made detailed presentations to the conference on their respective sectors focusing on latest developments and plans that were forthcoming in terms of new projects, spending plans and specifics on how UK firms might get involved.
The conference was attended by around 300 key decision makers from both countries, including a large number of Moroccan executives based in London. A succession of speakers conveyed a very positive message about modern Morocco which proved highly successful in highlighting the country's ongoing efforts to maintain sustained economic growth even in the recent difficult international environment.
Key messages concerned raising awareness of the position of Morocco as an industrial hub in the North African region and the progress made by the Kingdom in the field of energy and diversifying its industrial base.
Senior British participation in the conference was headed by the Minister of State for Trade, Investment and Small Business, Lord Davies of Abersoch, the current Lord Mayor, Alderman Ian Luder, the Chairman of the International Financial Services London (IFSL), Sir Stephen Wright, and Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, a former Foreign Office minister with responsibility for the Middle East and North Africa.
The Moroccan delegation included four key ministers, and included Mr Karim Hajji, Managing Director of Casablanca Stock Exchange and Mr Fathallah Sijilmassi, the Director of the Moroccan Investment Promotion Agency (AMDI), whose organisation was one of the principle organisers of the conference.
In her opening address, H H Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui paid tribute to all those who had supported the conference.
The Ambassador said that the “high level, dynamic representation (from Morocco) reflects the strong will of H M King Mohammed VI to strengthen our bilateral relations”.
She said that the opening marked the official launch of the investment conference on Morocco to be held in London on an annual basis. “We want this initiative to be a lasting and regular one.”
H H Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui told the delegates that her country’s “draft budget law for the year 2010 commits an unprecedented budget of more than €14 billion for public investment, representing an increase of almost 40% in the years 2009 and 2010.”
In his welcoming remarks, the Lord Mayor, Rt Hon Ian Luder said that Morocco had been the destination of his first overseas visit on becoming mayor.
The Lord Mayor praised Morocco’s record in modernisation and liberalising its economy. The country’s advanced status with the EU meant that tariff barriers were coming down and its ambitions to become a hub for trade with the African continent made Morocco a very attractive business partner.
Furthermore, the country had demonstrated clearly its keenness to work with the UK and as a consequence trade was growing. Although the UK was already one of the top investors in Morocco, the Lord Mayor expressed the hope that the conference would help bring Morocco and the UK even closer together.
H E Taib Fassi-Fihri, Morocco’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Finance, stressed that business in the country operated in full transparency and no one partner was favoured over another, sending out a positive message to businesses in the UK to come to Morocco to do business.
Delegates were informed that public tender documents were now readily available in the English language making it much easier for UK firms to access them. The minister outlined the real opportunities for UK investors in Morocco as it embarked on its controlled, well budgeted and carefully planned programme of growth and expansion.
New sectors were rapidly evolving like IT and communications; social house building and urban development was a key priority; solar energy offered great potential; while traditional sectors like tourism and agriculture were undergoing a substantial upgrading, the minister said in a wide ranging speech.
UK Minister Lord Davies said that Morocco had a special story to tell in that it already possessed a developed and diversified economy and could look to the future with confidence. The minister said that the UK was ready to cooperate with Morocco as it looked for new partners and new markets. He urged UK firms to get more involved.
The keynote speaker in the first panel discussion on prospects economic growth was H E Salaheddine Mezour, Morocco’s Minister of Economy and Finance.
He emphasised the strategic importance of Morocco’s location for growth in trade and commerce between Europe and Africa.
Morocco had adopted an “added value” strategy which recognised that its skilled human resources offered businesses a significant advantage. By locating some of their operations in Morocco, European firms could benefit from lower labour costs in a business friendly environment and a location advantageous for exporting to Africa and beyond.
In addition, Morocco’s domestic market should not be overlooked as it was growing in sophistication with consumers acquiring greater spending power.
The minister called for greater effort at Euro-Med integration to open up a new dynamic in European and Moroccan relations to enable both to prosper from the challenges of the future.
During a panel discussion, Morocco was commended for its rapid response to the recent global financial crisis. Its banking system had chosen to avoid holding toxic assets so was not embroiled in the credit crunch.
Sir Stephen Wright felt that Morocco should interest City of London investors since it offered less risk especially at the present time when there were no easy markets anymore. London should be able to offer Morocco access to private funding to help the country realise its greatly ambitious investment programme, Sir Stephen said.
H E Ahmed Reda Chami, Minister of Industry, Trade and Information Technology, declared that Morocco was proud of its role as a bridge between cultures. It enjoyed the stability essential for long-term development and a framework favourable to business.
The economic goals of becoming a modern, productive, competitive country were being realised through adopting liberalisation and privatisation as priorities. This policy presented significant opportunities for investors.
Mr Chami outlined the specific growth in emerging sectors such as automotives, aerospace, electronics and offshoring as areas where profitable returns could be made by investors. As EU firms now needed to face an increasingly competitive world market with countries such as China and India, they could look to Morocco in order to reduce their manufacturing costs, the minister said.
Morocco had all the modern infrastructure, services and human resources that businesses required and it was able to meet all the standards that European firms expected.
Special advantages in the form of tax concessions at very competitive rates were available in the country’s free zones. More companies were coming to recognise what Morocco had to offer and were staring to locate operations.
James Todd, Managing Director of Unilever Maghreb, reinforced this positive message by saying that the country was an exciting environment in which to do business; it had a supportive government, strong growth prospects, social stability and a consumer market that was highly favourable to leading brands.
Morocco was also showing that it was serious about developing its hi-tech industries, according to Ian Godden, a top executive from the UK aerospace industry.
Renewable energy is another important hi-tech sector that Morocco is now investing heavily in. On this issue, Ms Amina Benkhadra, Minister of Energy, Mining, Water and Environment, gave a detailed presentation concerning Morocco’s new energy strategy which she described forming part of a “new deal for sustainable development”.
The plan includes modernisation of agriculture, drainage and waste management, the rationalised use of water, energy efficiency and pollution control.
Solar and wind power were to be one of the pillars of the country’s sources of energy in the future, she said, given that Morocco “owns amazing renewable energy resources”.
The minister stated that Morocco had been “observing with interest the efforts deployed by the UK in the fields of energy, environment preservation and climate change mitigation; especially the low carbon transition plan issued by the British government, which has set up one of the most ambitious strategies in the world to achieve a prosperous and environmentally friendly economy.”
Morocco recently announced its intention to accelerate the expansion of renewable energy and wants to see 42% of its electricity generation derived from solar, wind and hydro power by 2020, the minister stated.
The persuasive message delivered by the high level Moroccan delegation highlighted the importance placed on closer relations with the UK.
Each of the speakers stressed how British industry was well placed to partner with Morocco as it seeks to realise its ambitions in numerous areas. Following the abundance of favourable information unveiled to UK businesses at the investment conference, expectations are now high for wider cooperation with organisers confidently awaiting news of tangible outcomes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No Response to "Morocco Investment Conference highlights opportunities for growth and progress"
Leave A Reply