2024-07-24 18:46:21
Paying a warm tribute to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the teams of the Regional Investment Center (RIC) of Marrakech-Safi, who were at the heart of the organization of this day, Mr. Azoulay indicated that “for the first time, Essaouira can finally speak in billions of dirhams”, inviting the audience to “take the true measure of the unprecedented momentum that the City is experiencing with the announcement today of private investments of the order of 6 billion dirhams, confirmed for the most part and partly the subject of signed agreements which have begun the final phase of their implementation process”.
Welcoming the presence of a large ministerial delegation and highlighting the participation in this “exceptional forum” of the leaders of the main public institutions, whose mobilization and commitment will determine the consolidation and broadening of the momentum experienced by the City of Trade Winds, Mr. Azoulay developed a long plea recalling “that more than 30 years ago, Essaouira surprised and astonished by choosing to root its refoundation in the depth and richness of its thousand-year-old history and in the place that our country has been able to give to its cultural and social heritage, a heritage read, understood and reinterpreted beyond an exclusively aesthetic and emotional approach”.
“Essaouira then had, at the beginning of the 90s, less than ten hotels; today there are more than 500, mostly riads and boutique hotels, which make the City of Trade Winds a destination that is experiencing impressive dynamism. A destination that has chosen to place at the heart of its renaissance the legitimacy and depth of all its diversity, thus embodying and strengthening the leadership of our country in a community of nations weakened by the temptations of amnesia, the deadly illusions of identity withdrawal or the denial of the art of living together while respecting our respective histories and spiritualities,” he observed.
For Mr. Azoulay, “today’s achievements and the exciting prospects that are emerging for Essaouira must not distract us from the urgency of providing a consistent and responsible response to the challenges that remain and to the fortresses that Essaouira has still not managed to conquer.”
“I am thinking in particular of the university that Essaouira never stops hoping for and waiting for, while this year again, the Cité des Alizés is playing in the league of the greatest with a success rate of 97.75% in the baccalaureate, which ranks it for the third year in 1st place in the Marrakech-Safi region. But, as in previous years, thousands of Souiris baccalaureate holders will be forced to go into exile to pursue their higher education,” he continued.
In the same order of urgency and priority, Mr. Azoulay spoke at length about the responses to be provided to the isolation of Essaouira, an attractive and efficient peninsula which requires, among other things, that highways no longer systematically stop 100km from the city coming from Marrakech or Casablanca via El Jadida and Safi.
“There is a systemic inevitability that the Souiris refuse to accept through silence or resignation,” said Mr. Azoulay, recalling in the same context “the urgent need to take Essaouira into account in the different scenarios and studies underway for the choice of the route of the future TGV link between Marrakech and Agadir.”
“Our expectations are legitimate and they are not those of charity or benevolence, but those that are objectively dictated to us by the economic, geographical and social realities of Essaouira in 2024,” said Mr. Azoulay.
“The time has come to change software to put in place the systems and modalities that will consolidate and sustain this Souiri momentum and the dynamics that carry it, by forcing the respect and pride of the greatest number of us,” concluded Mr. Azoulay to the cheers of the hundreds of participants in this day, which will have sealed in the short and medium term the new roadmap of Essaouira.
2024-07-24 18:46:21