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Rabat- Nasser Kamel, the Secretary-General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), has said that “the development experience in Morocco is” on track as the country moves toward greater prosperity.
In an interview with Morocco’s state media on the sidelines of the 4th World Maritime Forum, held September 24 and 25 in Bizerte in northern Tunisia, the UfM chief pointed to Morocco’s positive economic performance in recent months by explaining that the kingdom is the second most attractive African country for foreign direct investment after Egypt.
The Egyptian diplomat noted that there has been a “significant improvement in the capacity of certain Mediterranean countries, like Morocco, to diversify their exports,” stressing Morocco’s attractive investment opportunities and increasingly liberal political reforms in recent years.
Kamel also spoke of Morocco’s strategy of developing its economic resilience by investing in value-generating industries.
“The automotive industry in Morocco is a living example of a strategic orientation adopted by the state and which has enabled the country to both become a real hub in this field and diversify its exports to the countries of the European Union and the south of the Mediterranean,” he said.
He applauded recent efforts to create a unified Euro-Mediterranean origins system, saying that the platform will lead to the achievement of economic integration and facilitate regional integration as a result.
Deploring the growing disparities in terms of economic integration between the two shores of the Mediterranean, he also decried the lack of genuine economic integration in the region.
He conceded, however, that there have been serious initiatives to resolve these disparities, citing Morocco as one of the countries that have successfully diversified their export structures both regionally and internationally. A great part of this success has been the Moroccan government’s commitment to encouraging the diversification of the country’s industrial infrastructure, he argued.
Recalling the socio-economic significance of regional integration, Kamel noted that it was “imperative” to establish a mechanism linking sustainable development goals to economic cooperation, trade flows, and the empowerment of women.
He pointed out that many of the studies conducted by the UfM focused on how empowering women could boost the national economies in many countries by 70%.
According to him, despite increasingly high female graduation rates, women have been lagging behind in the process of integrating themselves into development.
Linking female empowerment to climate change, Kamek argued that the European Union is exploring practical solutions to issues pertaining to women’s empowerment, investments, trade flows, and climate change.
“Climate change is not just a challenge, but an opportunity as well,” he commented, appearing to suggest that the climate emergency might prompt many governments to make commitments and implement policies they would not have otherwise considered.
He also mentioned Morocco’s increasingly applauded sustainability initiatives, saying: “The Kingdom has a clear policy to adapt to this situation and deal with the resulting effects.”
