FOM Newsletter February 2002
FOM Newsletter February 2002 Index
Morocco Week in Review
 

Casablanca, Morocco - At least 23 000 young girls and adolescents are employed as live-in maids in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, a recent government study shows. Almost two-thirds of the girls are under age 15 and 82% of them are illiterate, according to the study by the Moroccan Ministry of Economic Planning that was done with UN funding. The average monthly salary paid to the young maids, generally handed directly to an older family member, was between 200 and 400 dirhams ($17-$34). They did not receive health or other social benefits. The study also said that 4.5% had been sexually abused. While the study was conducted in Casablanca, officials say exploitation of young domestic workers occurs in every large Moroccan city. Casablanca is considered the economic capital of Morocco and also is the largest city, with 3 million inhabitants. Rabat is the capital. - Sapa-AP

IDB contributes $ 0.25 mln for anti-desertification fight in Maghreb.

The Islamic Development Bank will donate countries of the Arab Maghreb Union a donation of $ 225,000 to contribute to anti-desertification program in the five north African countries. A convention was signed on Monday in Rabat by outgoing UMA secretary general, Ahmed Amamou, and director of the IDB regional office in Rabat, Hani Sounbol. The fund will go to developing national and regional anti-desertification programs, holding regional consultation meetings and conducting technical research on the matter. The IBD, based in Jeddah, is the financial arm of the Organization of Islamic Conference.

The government of Japan has granted donations, worth US$ 0.34 Mln, to several Moroccan associations, active in various development fields. The Japanese donations, part of the non-reimbursable aid to small projects programs, were earmarked for eight associations working in drinking water supply, small rural roads and agriculture.

Morocco's tourism levels decreased by 23 percent

Official sources reported that Morocco's tourism levels decreased by 23 percent since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, reported Al-Hayat . Nevertheless, Rabat expects its tourism sector to recover starting in the second quarter of 2002. Rabat anticipates three million tourists to arrive in Morocco by the end of 2002. --

(menareport.com)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------

Moroccan King Mohammed the Sixth recently held a meeting in Tanjah to evaluate the effect the September 11 attacks had on Morocco's economy.  The King requested related authorities to accelerate the execution of tourism infrastructure development projects included in the 10-year tourism plan that ends in 2010, reported Al-Hayat. This plan aims to attract 10 million tourists per annum into Morocco by 2010. The Moroccan government allocated approximately seven billion dollars to developing the infrastructure projects. -- (menareport.com)

RABAT, Jan. 29 - Morocco on Tuesday set up a competition council that will play a refereeing role in matters of loyal economic competition.  Morocco's Premier Abderrahmane Youssoufi, installed the same day the members of the council, chaired by Othmane Demnati, a former agriculture minister. The council was set up to facilitate transition into an economy that will more and more apply market mechanisms, transparency and loyalty in commercial relations as well the consolidation of consumers' information rules, Youssoufi said at the installation ceremony. The Council will be representative and impartial in its decisions and will be endowed with the necessary means to conduct investigation and fulfil missions vested on it, he said. The council will be made up of six representatives of the administration, three economic and legal experts and three members having served in production, distribution and services. The new body will play an advisory council regarding anti-competition practices.

Morocco and Quebec set up a financial company for venture capital management, called Access Capital Atlantique (ACASA). The joint company was set up by the Moroccan "Caisse de D?p?t et de Gestion" (CDG) and Quebec's "Caisse de D?p?t et de Placement (CDP). The management company will run a 300 Mln Dirham (US$ 26 Mln) capital. The funds will finance small and medium-sized enterprises. The activities of the new firm will be launched in Casablanca Monday.

Morocco's imports of new information technologies increased by 42 percent in 2000 over 1999, the Moroccan trade and industry department said. Between 1995 and 2000, Morocco imported the equivalent of US$ 608.69 million of new information technology equipment.

The number of Internet subscribers in the Arab World has increased significantly over the past year, alongside an even bigger increase in available international Internet bandwidth, a recent report by Arab Advisors Group indicates. Although the overall bandwidth crunch in the Arab World is indeed easing, the pace of improvement is faster in some countries than others. The eight Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had more than 1.08 million Internet subscribers in total by year-end 2001. These subscribers surfed the Internet utilizing a total combined international Internet bandwidth of 1.9 gigabits per second (Gbps), which is unevenly distributed amongst them. Between 2000 and 2001, 348,000 new subscribers were registered in these eight markets, a 47 percent increase. Available International Internet bandwidth grew at a faster rate of 154 percent to add 1.195 Gbps in available bandwidth for the eight markets. "This increase in total bandwidth to total subscribers is a change for the better, especially in the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where the percent growth in bandwidth was at least more than double the growth rate of subscribers", according to analyst Shahin Shahin. 

The report calculates a Regional Bandwidth Index for the eight markets in January 2002, by dividing a country's bandwidth share by its accounts share. Results higher than one indicate a better than regional average bandwidth per subscriber. The higher the result, the better the bandwidth availability per account. When comparing these figures with the August 2001 Index, the Arab Advisors Group's analysts noted that index scores for Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Morocco slipped, while the Emirati, Omani and Saudi scores improved. In August 2001, Morocco led the Arab Advisors Group's Internet Regional Bandwidth index rankings with a score of 3.701, followed by Egypt with 2.116, Jordan with 1.497, Oman's 1.381, the UAE with 0.738, Saudi Arabia with 0.59, Lebanon with 0.429 and Syria closing the list with 0.19. The results for the January 2002 index show that Oman jumped to lead the pack with a 3.448 index score, followed by Morocco with 1.944, Egypt with 1.712, UAE with 1.363, Saudi Arabia's 0.604 score, Jordan's 0.509, Lebanon's 0.207 and Syria at 0.110. -- (menareport.com)

Return to Friends of Morocco Home Page