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FOM Newsletter
April 2002Morocco
resolutely embarking on reforms, official.
Three
Moroccans in Georgetown University Symposium on Arab Novel.
Moroccan King
Names Dam near Agadir after Late Uncle.
INTERVIEW-British
investors eye more business in Morocco
Casablanca Hosts
Arab Conference on Child Labor.
Rabat
hosts sub-regional forum on women and micro-finance
Moroccan king
expected to visit Crawford next week
Morocco resolutely embarking on reforms, official.
Politics, 4/15/2002
Morocco has resolutely embarked on an irreversible path of reforms, geared towards the consolidation of institutions and of political stability. The statement was made by Moroccan town planning, urbanism, housing and environment minister, Mohamed El Yazghi, at the 52nd Economic Forum for Africa, which opened Monday in Hamburg, Germany. The Forum is bringing together representatives from the Maghreb countries and Sudan in addition to 300 German firms. The Moroccan official said the association accord binding Morocco and the European Union and prospects of bilateral free trade are for Morocco a spur and a challenge that all the components of the Moroccan society are ready to take up. The Minister dwelt on various incentives Morocco offers for foreign investors, particularly in terms of competitiveness, taxation and procurements liberalization as well environment protection.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020415/2002041553.html
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Three Moroccans in Georgetown University Symposium on Arab Novel.
Culture, 4/15/2002
Three Moroccan writers participated in a symposium on the Arab Novel: visions of social reality, sponsored by the Arab contemporary studies center of the Georgetown University. Ahmed Taoufiq, Mubarek Rabii and Ahmed El Madini, all of them university professors and novel writers, participated in the three-day symposium that was meant to inform westerners on Arab culture and civilization and to straighten up stereotypes. During the opening session Friday, participants criticized orientalist writers who circulated negative images on Arabs in a bid to maintain the supremacy of the west and at the same time blamed Arab intellectuals for the poor efforts made to improve these images. Director of the center, Ms Barbara Freyer Stowasser, expressed thanks to all those who contributed to the organization of the symposium, including Moroccan minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Mohamed Benaissa, and the Arab League, and said the event is an opportunity for Americans to better know Arab culture and literature.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020415/2002041549.html
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Moroccan King Names Dam near Agadir after Late Uncle.
April 15, 2002
Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Friday dedicated a dam in the commune of Tamri, near the Moroccan southern city of Agadir. The King named the facility after his late uncle Prince Moulay Abdallah. The Sovereign heard explanations on the US$ 56.03-million dam, destined to supply drinking water to the city of Agadir and to neighboring areas, MAP reported. The construction works were financed by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Islamic Development Bank.
Copyright 2002. All Rights Reserved.
http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=displaynews&doc_id=NR20020415670.2_de5b00008b7caab8
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INTERVIEW-British investors eye more business in Morocco
By Ali Bouzerda
RABAT, April 16 (Reuters) - Moroccan elections later this year could boost foreign investment and British firms and investors aimed to increase their exposure to the country, British ambassador Anthony Layden said on Tuesday. Political analysts say the elections, due in September, will be crucial as they will be the first since King Hassan's death in 1999 and the enthronement of King Mohammed, who has been pushing for large-scale reforms in the North African country. "I think the elections may give investment a boost just by taking place," Layden told Reuters in an interview. He said Britain aimed to increase awareness about Morocco's investment prospects over the next three years in a bid to boost trade between the two countries. "The British government has adopted Morocco as a target market, one of 14 such markets worldwide, for a three-year campaign of events and trade missions," ambassador Anthony Layden told Reuters in an interview. Britain has become Morocco's third largest export market in the Arab world, behind Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, and trade between the two countries has tripled in the last 10 years to around $1.3 billion in 2001. Layden, a veteran diplomat who speaks fluent Arabic, said several British delegations would travel to Morocco in the coming weeks to search for investment and partnership opportunities, including the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Chief Digby Jones in June and British Trade Minister Baroness Symons later in the year. He said British companies and investors operating in the textile, tourism, agro-industry and oil sectors saw Morocco as a potential market.
POLITICAL STABILITY
The British envoy said Morocco had been chosen as a target market because of its political stability. "Morocco has made steady progress in recent years in the political and economic reforms needed to make the country more business friendly," he said. Morocco's late King Hassan appointed a seven-party cabinet in 1998 to speed up economic reforms and lure foreign investment. "The element that has been missing until recently has been effective action by the government to draw the attention of business people in the U.K. to the opportunities available here. This too,
is being done," the ambassador said. He added that the British companies working in Morocco, which include Dewhirst , GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever , currently employed 30,000 Moroccans who mainly manufactured clothing for the British market. British firms were also actively promoting tourism to Morocco. Around 150,000 British tourists visited Morocco in 2001, little changed from the previous year. (Rabat newsroom, +212-37 726518, fax +212-37 722499 rabat.newsroom@reuters.com) © Reuters Limited.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Casablanca Hosts Arab Conference on Child Labor.
Culture, 4/16/2002
The Moroccan city of Casablanca hosts April 17-19 an Arab conference on child labor. The event will be held under the theme "the phenomenon of child labor in Arab countries. between the constraints of reality and the challenges of globalization." Among the 250 million 5-14 year-old working children in the world, some 12 millions are from the Arab states, director general of the Arab Labor Organization, Ibrahim Qouider said in a release circulated in Cairo on the eve of the conference. The conference is initiated by the Cairo-based Arab Labor Organization (ALO) and
several Moroccan ministerial departments.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020416/2002041652.html
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Rabat hosts sub-regional forum on women and micro-finance
Economics, 4/18/2002
A two-day sub-regional forum on women and micro-finance opened in Rabat Wednesday with representatives of several African countries attending.The encounter, held under the theme "sub-regional consultations on the reduction of the gender-specific dimensions of poverty: micro-financing policies, processes and practices," is debating means to promote women's economic conditions and ensure their integration. Opening the forum, Moroccan delegate minister in charge of women condition, family, children and handicapped persons' integration, Nouzha Chekrouni, said women's access to means of production has become a necessity to fight poverty and promote local and regional development. She called for consolidating the rule of women-led enterprises through endowing them with modern techniques to improve their competitiveness, especially by initiating them to the norms of quality, new production and marketing techniques,
and information and communication technologies like Internet. The minister recalled that her department enforced a number of measures to encourage women enterprises, which not only aim at eradicating poverty, but also to spot women's economic abilities, in order to lower the social and cultural obstacles to their blossoming in all fields. Morocco is waging a battle against gender disparities in the realms of education, health, employment and decision-making, Ms. chekrouni said. Other speakers said Africa's economic and social development requires the contribution of all human potentialities, and underlined the decisive role the African women have to play. Representatives from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sao Tome, and Togo are participating in the forum, sponsored by the United Nations Secretariat General's division of wome promotion.http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020418/2002041826.html
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Moroccan king expected to visit Crawford next week
By JASON EMBRY Tribune-Herald staff writer
King Mohammed VI of Morocco plans to visit President Bush's Crawford ranch next week, an
official with the Moroccan government said Friday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the king plans to meet with Bush on Friday, the day after the president is scheduled to host Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. White House spokesman Taylor Gross said only that "there have not been any announcements" regarding a visit by the king to Crawford. City Aviation Director Jimmie Hanes Jr. said a Moroccan air official called him Friday afternoon and asked if Waco Regional Airport has the runway space needed to land a 747 jet. Hanes said he suggested the official call Texas State Technical College, where Bush usually arrives on Air Force One. "We've all heard that (Abdullah) is coming with his entourage, but this appears to be something different," Hanes said. Bush is scheduled to meet with Mohammed at the White House on Tuesday."The president looks forward to the opportunity to review regional and bilateral issues with the king of Morocco, who has played a constructive role in the search for Middle East peace and has been a staunch ally in the international fight against terrorism," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in a statement announcing Tuesday's meeting. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Mohammed during his recent trip to the Middle East. Bush is scheduled to arrive at his ranch on Wednesday, and Abdullah is scheduled to arrive for a one-day meeting on Thursday. Fleischer said earlier this week that the two leaders will discuss a Saudi peace proposal that Abdullah offered at a March Arab summit in Beirut. He also said they will discuss the U.S.-Saudi relationship, the next phase in the war on terror and the situation in the Middle East. Bush hosted British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his ranch two weeks ago. Russian President
Vladimir Putin visited last fall.Jason Embry can be reached at 757-5743 or at jembry@wacotrib.com.
http://www.wacotrib.com/auto/feed/news/2002/04/19/1019272740.03468.3117.3516.html
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