Casablanca – The President of the Republic of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, announced that Morocco has proposed the construction of a fertilizer factory on Guatemalan territory, with the aim of opening the door to distributing fertilizers generated in the Moroccan facility to Latin America.
Speaking at the third ordinary meeting of the National Council for Urban and Rural Development held on Wednesday, Giamatti confirmed that Guatemala and Morocco are approaching an agreement for the manufacturing of low-cost fertilizers on Guatemalan territory and the delivery of the plant to farmers.
“It would be to supply Latin America and we would be benefited since they would give us a much lower cost because we don’t have to pay for transportation or containers. It would be much cheaper with local production,” said the Guatemalan president.
Giamatti noted that the deal with Morocco’s King will be signed shortly as both a medium and long-term solution.
With this agreement, Guatemala will not “be subject to [fertilizers] coming from outside and to the payment of maritime freight, because we end up paying things that we should not,” he underlined.
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According to Giammattei, the Guatemalan government is considering the prospect of importing European fertilizers from Morocco at lower prices despite recent drops in agro-input costs.
For Giammattei, the goal is to make them available to farmers’ groups that will not receive the stipend that will be granted to around 180,000 micro-farmers.
“We do not intend to earn a single penny, but rather that the fertilizers have a better price so that the farmers can have better harvests,” the Guatemalan president added.
