Morocco aims for middle east trade
Morocco is targeting increased trade and investment links with the GCC as the euro-zone crisis impacts on its exports to Europe, its main trading partner.
Trade officials and business leaders from the country have visited Dubai to cooperate on using Dubai and Morocco as export gateways to the Middle East and Africa respectively.
“We are targeting partners for the distribution of products as well as investor partners,” said Abdellatif Mazouz, Morocco’s minister of foreign trade. “We want to reinforce our presence in existing markets like Europe but also diversify into new markets.”
Morocco can account for about 60% of its trade through the EU. Its trade with the EU has risen 12% so far in 2011, but the rate of increase has slowed from 31% last year.
Morocco exported $220 million of goods to the UAE in 2010, with $123m of non-oil goods headed the other way. European demand for about 25 million pairs of shoes that Moroccan leather manufacturers usually export to the continent every year is weakening.
The $4 million leathergoods export market will expand by about 5% this year, up on last year but a long way short of the double-digit growth the industry recorded before the global financial crisis, said Mohamed Amaiz, the president of the Moroccan Federation of Leather Industries.
Federation officials are part of the Moroccan trade delegation visiting the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait to secure new buyers in the Gulf.
