1- What economic impacts will the visit of the President of the Spanish government have?
The border between Morocco and Spain is one of the shortest international borders in the world. The history of the two countries is more than 10 centuries old.
The human, social and economic alliance has always existed. Today, it is changing generations to be part of the pragmatic consensus in the present to build the future.
The twenty or so agreements signed during the 12th RHN Spain-Morocco are mostly sovereign and multilateral and continental in scope, as they aim to address the migration issue through anticipatory measures to transform illegal migration into labor mobility of Moroccan skills and qualified labor, but also from sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of the agreements go in this direction.
It is about rethinking the question of immigration in its demographic dimension and supporting Morocco in its strategy of becoming an incubator of human capital and a realistic view of migratory phenomena and what the triangulation of Africa, Morocco, and the European Union must do.
As for the economic impact of the visit of the President of the Spanish Government, trade and the establishment of Spanish companies have been increasing significantly since last year.
Bilateral trade volume increased by 31% in 2022, making Morocco Spain’s main trading partner outside the EU after the United Kingdom and the United States.
2- The two countries agreed to renew the existing Financial Protocol by doubling the available resources to reach 800 million euros. How should this measure impact the Moroccan economy? particularly in the current economic climate, marked in particular by inflation
Spain is the third largest investor in Morocco in the fields of renewable energy, seawater desalination, rail transport, education and culture.
The increase in the line of credits within the framework of the Financial Protocol to 800 million euros is clearly oriented towards supporting Spanish investments in Morocco, in the form of joint ventures which, within the framework of forms of co-locations, will create jobs, added value and will lead to supporting the industrialization of Morocco and its energy transition.
It is also to allow Spain to break through in obtaining future contracts in Morocco but also in Africa through triangulation.
It must be said that both the Moroccan and Spanish visions envisage a broad area of ​​cooperation, and greater connectivity across the strait is presented as an obvious advantage for both shores and for a prosperous, peaceful and serene destiny of the African continent.
The superposition of global crises and the weakening of global geopolitical balances make Spain and Morocco need to build a strategic awareness that rivals the demographic risks and dangers, aging, climate change and the troubles and intrusions that shake the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the whole of Africa and the war at the gates of the European Union.
This is to say that cyclical or structural inflation is not the real fuel that propels the new synergies between the two kingdoms of Morocco and Spain; it is essentially the history and geography of the two great nation-states.
3- What about investments? In the context of the recent adoption of the New Investment Charter and also the fact that Spain is the third largest foreign investor in Morocco
Trade between Morocco and Spain amounted to 154 billion dirhams (MMDH) in 2021, with 70.9 MMDH of Moroccan exports and 83.1 MMDH of imports from Spain.
Spain is Morocco’s leading supplier of components dominated by manufactured products and medium-level technology.
The recent adoption of the New Investment Charter and the Mohammed VI Fund are the main levers for national and foreign investment projects.
In recent years, Morocco has increased its absorption of industrial foreign direct investment and has become a hub of global value chains in Africa and the MENA region, now ranked second and third.
This attraction is due to its political stability, low labor costs, strategic geographic location, tax exemptions and the strengthening of infrastructure that connects Morocco’s trade with Europe, allowing goods to reach Spain, France and Portugal in a matter of hours, sometimes even minutes.
Data analysis shows Morocco’s strong economic relationship with the European Union and Spain.
In addition to the importance of port and road infrastructure in attracting foreign direct investment, it appears that the neighbourhood policy and the imperative of a catch-up process dictated by the demographic dividend in the south of the Mediterranean and in Africa and the deficit in Europe should lead to the construction of new models in the division of labour and in the mobility of the workforce, to which is added the urgency of decarbonisation and the traceability of goods and services which will make geographical proximity a central comparative advantage for foreign direct investment (FDI).
In the end, Morocco seems willing to build the highways of the future for shared prosperity between the North and the South; it is essential to repair the wounds of inequalities in the face of development of which Africa has been a victim throughout this half-century of independence in interdependence.
Today, time is pressing and it is changing, the average age in Africa is 17 years, 45 years in the European Union. Spain and Morocco have understood the need for an exit from the tunnel of Africa, economic take-off or famines and mass migrations.
2024-08-14 12:29:01