FOM Newsletter January 2003
Morocco Week in Review January 4 2003

RABAT, Dec. 31 - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has agreed to extend Morocco US$ 3.3 million to modernize the North African country's justice, the US embassy in Morocco said. Under an accord signed here Tuesday, USAID agreed to extend the amount over two years to help the Moroccan government improve the quality of administration of trade jurisdictions.  The accord is part of the spirit of overture envisioned by the free trade accord Morocco and the USA prepare to sign.

http://www.map.co.ma/mapeng/eng.htm 

US tourists shun Morocco : Number of tourists visiting Morocco from January to October 2002 fell by nearly 6% compared to last year.

RABAT - The number of US tourists who visited the north African kingdom of Morocco in the first 10 months of 2002 fell by 26 percent against the same period a year earlier, the finance ministry said Thursday.  Overall, the number of tourists who visited Morocco from January to October 2002 fell by nearly six percent, the report said, with the drop in the number of US visitors being the largest. Tourism had "continued its downward trend, although the slide was less serious than in the months immediately following September 11, 2001," the date of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.  The report did not say how many US tourists visited Morocco last year. The number of European visitors to the north African kingdom also fell, but only by 4.4 percent, the report said. The fall in numbers resulted in a fall in tourism revenue of 16.4 percent against the same period a year earlier. Tourism is one of Morocco's principal sources of revenue, together with phosphates exports and money sent back to the north African kingdom by expatriates.  The "unfavorable context" in the tourism industry was due to the economic downturn in western countries and to the "current geopolitical situation", the report said, referring to the consequences of the September 11 attacks in the United States and US preparations for a possible Iraqi war.

Moroccan Press Circulation Hardly Reaches 300,000 per Day

RABAT, Jan.02 - Moroccan written press' sales hardly exceed 300,000 copies per day, said the chairman of the Arab-African distribution and publishing company SAPRESS. In an interview published on Thursday by Arabic paper "Assahraa al Maghribia", on the occasion of 25th anniversary of the creation of SAPRESS, Mohamed Berrada said the current circulation rate is "insignificant" compared to other North African countries. He further said that the circulation rate is estimated at 13 copies per one thousand people, one of the lowest rates in the Arab world, where the average circulation stands at 46 per one thousand, and far behind France's rate of 300/1,000. These figures, noted Berrada, who has been managing SAPRESS since the company was set up in 1977 to break the monopoly over the distribution sector, exact that Moroccan newspapers find new practices that catch readers' attention, through local information.

A new Moroccan satellite television channel is expected to be on air early next year. At the same time, a private television channel is due to be launched in Casablanca. This would be the first practical step showing the intention of the Moroccan authorities to abandon their monopoly over the broadcast sector. According to some well-informed sources, the new channel will broadcast a selection of programmes chosen from the first channel (TVM) and the second one (2M), in addition to its own productions. Despite the launch of this satellite channel, the two Moroccan channels will continue to broadcast terrestrially.

As for the Casablanca private channel, it will be terrestrial only. No information has been given on the company or the parties that own it. On 27 December, the Moroccan government examined a draft bill aimed at ending the state monopoly on the audio-visual sector. A government source indicated that more than 30 applications for the creation of television and radio stations are currently being studied. It is believed that the state will maintain its control over the two existing channels, however, as is the case in some European countries. In an unprecedented step, Communications Minister Nabil Benabdallah visited the headquarters of Moroccan Radio and Television (RTM), including the first channel (TVM). The visit lasted four hours, during which Benabdallah visited all the station departments. He also talked to a large number of civil servants. During his tour, the minister was accompanied by TVM director Faysal Laaraichi and Abderrahman Achour, the radio director. This is the first time a communications minister has visited the headquarters of RTM, which to date has been under the direct control of the Moroccan palace, although it is theoretically under the supervision of the Communications Ministry. Previous communications ministers had visited the 2M channel in Casablanca in the past, however. Some changes which were expected within the audio-visual landscape have been postponed to a later date, as some new appointments are expected at the RTM in the coming weeks.

Source: Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, in Arabic 28 Dec 02 p 7 /© BBC Monitoring

Festival is time of flirting, time when girls, boys meet one another under adult control, with marriage as purpose. ,LONDON - By Saad Guerraoui

The most famous wedding tradition takes place in the village of Imilchil where all the young people who live in the High Atlas mountains come to participate in the "Moussem" (festival), a kind of tribal marriage Festival where the brides choose their grooms Of all moussems, religious festivals, the one in Imilchil every late September has become the most famous around the world. The village itself is nothing that stands out from other villages, but the festival is a time of flirting, and a time when girls and boys meet one another under some control of adults, with marriage as the purpose. What is the Legend of Imilchil Brides' Festival? The Legend : Her name was "Tislet", his was "Isli". Their families were enemy Berber tribes from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Although they were lovers, in true Shakespearean tradition, their irate parents refused to allow them to marry. Their hearts were broken. To live apart was impossible. They sadly exchanged vows, then drowned themselves in two nearby lakes which now bear their names. Destiny wills that even in death, they are unable to unite. The imposing mountain seated between the two bodies of water acts as a guardian even as their spirits reach out for one another. This act of desperation so devastated the hostile clans of the Berber "Ait addidou" that parents of this tribe thenceforth granted their children the right to choose their own marriage partners.  So unfold the story woven around the annual Berber Brides' Festival of Imilchil, held high in the lake plateau of the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco. Each year in September after the harvest, from every corner of the Ait Haddidou domain, come young men and women in search of a mate.  The moussem, or festival, occurs near Imilchil, at the site of the burial place of Sidi Mohamed El Maghani, the patron saint of the Ait Haddidou. Legend has it that the marriage which were blessed by this holy man were happy and long-lasting thus the reason for the arduous trek to this isolated area.  At one time, this was an exclusive "family affair", with members of some fifty tribes from the region converging on the otherwise barren plateau for a Berber version of the family reunion and wedding celebration combined. Now, those outsiders hardy enough to make the grueling trip are also welcome to participate in the festivities, the affaires become now an international attraction for tourists from all over the world.(Morocco today)

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