Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita held today a virtual meeting with his Finnish counterpart Pekka Haavisto.
The two officials extolled cooperation between Morocco and Finland, renewing the two countries’ determination to strengthen collaboration in numerous fields, including trade and green economy.
Trading Economics, a website specialized in global market forecasts, recently reported that Finland’s exports to Morocco amounted to $167.655 million in 2019. Meanwhile, Moroccan exports to Finland reached $7.73 million during the same year.
In 2020, Business Finland opened an office in Morocco’s Casablanca to explore investment opportunities in the North African country.
Commenting on the opening, the finnish embassy in Rabat said that the office sees “a lot of potential to increase trade relations with Morocco.”
Exemplary partnership
The virtual meeting between Bourita and Haavisto also served as an opportunity for Finland’s top diplomat to confirm his upcoming visit to Morocco, the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
The Finnish official expressed his country’s support for the promotion of the “exemplary and fruitful strategic partnership between” the European Union and Morocco.
He also reiterated Finland’s satisfaction with the key role that Morocco plays in promoting peace and stability in Africa and the whole region.
The two ministers welcomed the evolving coordination between Morocco and Finland, pledging to deepen their converging views on various “shared priority” concerns on the global stage.
Bourita and Haavisto agreed to continue consultation on regional and international issues of common interest, including on Libya and the Sahel.
Morocco has long expressed its commitment to the UN-led political process in Libya, with Rabat insisting that the international community should put more efforts into facilitating the success of Libya’s fragile political transition to end the country’s decade-long humanitarian crisis. Morocco hosted several roundtables to that end in recent months, convening rival Libyan parties to discuss the prospects of a feasible political roadmap to end the conflict.
The meetings resulted in several agreements that contributed to revamping the UN-led political process.
Morocco is also engaged in joint efforts to counter terrorism in Sahel, a region frequently described as the new ground zero for transnational terrorism.
Deploring the lack of cooperation from some neighboring countries, including Algeria, in the joint cooperation against terrorism in the Sahel, Morocco continues to call for more efforts and “a shared responsibility” mechanism to neutralize mounting security threats in the Sahel and Sahara regions.
