USD 1.64 Bn investments in Morocco in 2004.
Moroccan riad hotels on riads.fr
Over 80pc of food intoxication in Morocco due to fast food.
Moroccan cinemagoers decline.
Copyright issue in Morocco
Morocco invited to Cannes Film Festival.
Over 2 million disabled persons in Morocco (WHO).

USD 1.64 Bn investments in Morocco in 2004.
RABAT, Mar. 25

Investments in Morocco in 2004 have reached, according to temporary estimates, MAD 14 billion (around USD 1.64 Billion), said a senior official in the Finance Ministry. In an interview published by Al Moustakil weekly, Hassan Bernoussi explained that the final value of investments in 2004 was not yet counted, saying it could reach MAD 15 billion (around USD 1.76 billion). He added that the sale of 16pc of the capital of Maroc-Telecom will be listed in the accounts of 2005. Bernoussi recalled that the World Bank report on foreign investments in 2003 ranked Morocco at the top of Arab and African countries. He said stability of economic laws, the geographic location, infrastructures and the conditions of business encourage investors to settle in Morocco. He cited, nonetheless, that some problems discourage foreign investments, saying public authorities are examining them seriously.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/economy/usd_1.64_bn_investme/view
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Moroccan riad hotels on riads.fr
Paris, Mar. 23

www.Riads.fr is a website destined for online booking of Riads in the Moroccan cities of Marrakech (central south), Fez (center) and Essaouira (southwest), said the site associate director, Nicole Quilfen. Since its creation a year before, the bilingual site (French/English) managed to raise the number of confirmed reservations from 150 to 750. It accounts for a clientele comprised of French 40%, British 40% and 20% from elsewhere.

Riads.fr allows tourists from the four corners of the world to make real time reservations in over 60 riads (ancient private mansions and palaces developed into hotels) that have been selected according to strict quality features on top of which comes the respect of Moroccan architecture. Quilfen said other destinations, especially Rabat, Agadir (southwest), Tangier (north) and Ouarzazate (south), or yet the High Atlas will be included in the site.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/culture/moroccan_riad_hotels/view

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Over 80pc of food intoxication in Morocco due to fast food.
Rabat, Mar. 26

Over 80pc of food intoxication cases in Morocco are due to meals taken in fast food and meals prepared and served outside the house, revealed, on Saturday, president of the Moroccan Institution for Toxicology (SMT). Larbi Idrissi, who was speaking at the second national day on toxicology, added that 20pc of food intoxication cases result from the consumption of meals prepared and served at home. According to SMT president, these statistics do not reflect the real number of intoxication cases because many are not reported to health services.

He said food intoxication cases are on the rise, explaining that they are mainly due to food contaminated with a disease agent (bacteria, virus, parasites), or chemical products (pesticides...). He said the lack of training of the staff working in the restaurant business and the non respect of the basic elements of hygiene are often at the origin of intoxication cases. He noted that the majority of intoxication could be avoided if hygienic rules were respected. Idrissi said the national day on intoxication aims at raising the awareness of medical staff, professionals and consumers in general about this problem and about prevention measures.
http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/general/over_80pc_of_food_in/view
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Moroccan cinemagoers decline.

According to Moroccan cinema critic and historian, Ahmed Sijilimassi, Moroccan cinemagoers declined to 6 million in 2005 compared to 20 million in the 1990s. Maghreb Arabe Presse reports that the critic pointed out that the 143 local movie-theatres are expected to receive 6 million cinemagoers in 2005 compared to the 175 movie-theatres that hosted 20 millions in the 1990s. He noted that building a movie-theatre is no longer considered to be a profitable business and that piracy, bad distribution and exploitation, decoded cinema satellite channels and internet hacking make it almost impossible for the industry to recover.

On the other hand, Sijilimassi said that Moroccan cinema gives birth each year to 10-12 long feature-length movies and 15-20 short feature-length movies. This is achieved mainly thanks to governmental subsidies to film production. According to Sijilimassi, Morocco is one of the only Arab countries which subsidies cinema production and challenges the Egyptian supremacy in this field.
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Morocco/181946
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Copyright issue in Morocco

Piracy controversy in a Third World country The Ministry of Communication and the Moroccan Office for Intellectual Property (BMDA), in cooperation with two international organisations dealing with music and software industries, organised last week in Rabat a symposium to discuss the impact of piracy and counterfeit on the economy. "The aim of the meeting was to work towards eradicating a phenomenon which, not only brings damage to the national economy, but also destroys Morocco's image within the international community," explained Communication Minister Nabil Ben Abdellah in the opening speech.

According to recent figures, piracy and counterfeit that affect the sectors of software, cinema and music cost the Moroccan economy about MAD two billion. Nearly MAD 200 million are lost because of CD and audio tape piracy. According to the symposium's organisers, some powerful "organised crime groups" are behind 70% of the total fraudulent deeds. These groups act by continuously changing their corporate name, and have a production capacity of 400.000 audio tapes and 600.000 CD's per week.

Piracy in Morocco reaches a percentage of 73. The average in Africa is 56%, and 36% in the World. Ben Abdellah stated that the BMDA has been active in this domain in order to decrease this "alarming figure" to its minimum. "We must protect creativity from piracy by providing a sane environment in order to allow creators and producers to benefit from their works in the best ways," he added.

Ben Abdellah stressed the fact that his ministry will concentrate efforts during 2005 in order to eradicate piracy in Morocco. He reckoned that the country can no longer allow itself to tolerate the prosperity of such activities. "Our national and international commitments in the field of protecting copyrights oblige us to sketch out a joint policy in order to raise people's consciousness about the negative impacts of the phenomenon of piracy. We should also think of alternative solutions for the policy's social implications," he concluded.

Deep social implications.

Piracy in Morocco is considered a serious problem, given its social, cultural and economic implications. Many unemployed young graduates join in as resellers of CD's and tapes to fill in the gap caused by the government's inability to create enough work opportunities. The majority of consumers in the country, suffering form low purchasing power, find the piracy market very legitimate. A young university student would find it illogical to buy, for instance, a MS Office suite that costs at least MAD 4,000, while a pirated version is easily accessible at the nearest pirated CD's seller's for MAD 20.

The Moroccan government is confronted with difficult choices. On the one hand, it has to abide by international laws and agreements to which it has become member. On the other hand, internal constraints are so high that could lead to a serious crisis. Once piracy has become effectively forbidden and eradicated, thousands of people who are making their living from this trade will join the other hundreds of thousands unemployed. The country is already having serious problems dealing with the latter and can hardly afford to tackle another handful of them.

The government knows this perfectly well and is trying to gain time by adopting half-measures. While you can find in the local piracy market all kinds of software, programmes, Hollywood or Bollywood movies you may think of, there is absolutely no sign of Moroccan productions. Although no one would admit it, there are some unspoken rules in the market of piracy. Those who transgressed these rules and dared to sell pirated CD's of Moroccan movies have seen their shops confiscated and heavy fines and imprisonment imposed on them.

Contradiction reached its climax a few weeks ago when the second public TV station almost hailed the success of some local hackers in deciphering the encryption of the most watched French TV digital satellite package. French TPS group suddenly changed its encryption system, causing the frustration of hundreds of viewers who used to recharge their satellite receivers for as low as MAD 20 whenever TPS changed the codes. Moroccan viewers who receive the pirated package as a granted asset of the satellite media scene, found the disappearance of the French channel package for about a week upsetting.

2M TV dealt with the event as a triumph of the Moroccan genius, referring to technicians in Casablanca's famous flea market Derb Ghallef who sell and repair electronic devices. The report didn't pay attention to former documentaries in which it covered the government's struggle with such phenomena. But what 2M called a triumphant genius was not even the reality. Those "geniuses", in fact, did nothing more than downloading the codes from the Internet, where true hackers and experts post their work, and then recharge devices with them. This unprofessional behaviour from a public and strategic organisation showed to what extent the government, including its communications ministry, has to reorganise its institutions, including the editorial policy of public media bodies.
http://www.moroccotimes.com/paper/article.asp?idr=2&id=5196
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Morocco invited to Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes Film Festival. The new program entitled "All the Cinemas of the World" will be inaugurated this year in Cannes Festival and will be held from May 11 to May 22. This program is aimed at presenting the cinematographic creation of a number of selected countries. Emarrakech reports that the list of countries that were invited to take part in the first edition of this project also includes Austria, Sri-Lanka and several Latin American countries. © 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Morocco/181994
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Over 2 million disabled persons in Morocco (WHO).
Health, 3/30/2005

Morocco counts over 2 million disabled persons, that is 7pc of the population, revealed figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Figures showed that 90% of disabled people in Morocco live in impoverished areas, 82% are uneducated, 57% are unable to work, 34% are unemployed and that 98% do not have a dole or a health insurance.

Celebrating the International Day of Disabled Persons (March 30th), Morocco has reiterated the importance to promote the situation of persons with special needs who endure harsh life conditions. To this aim, the country has set up governmental institutions dedicated to promoting the situation of these persons and to promoting their social integration. In 1995, the government established the high body for disabled people to draw up a comprehensive action plan to help this category. Besides, Morocco has made many efforts to promote the economic and social situation of disabled people under a plan that identified realms of intervention, including awareness, prevention, professional integration, schooling and legislation.

The government has established five acoustic libraries, while seven others are due to be built part of a programme that aims at providing universities with infrastructures dedicated to blind and amblyopic people. On the other hand, a law was enacted to take into account the needs of disabled persons in urban architecture, transports and telecommunications.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/050330/2005033027.html
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