The World Economic Situation and Prospects 2007 report, published on Tuesday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development had some interesting figures on growth, not just in Morocco, but the Maghreb in general. According to the report Morocco witnessed a strong economic boom in 2006 thanks to a good agricultural season and an ongoing dynamism in the service sector - factors "shared by both Morocco and Tunisia, which will ensure the growth pace in 2007."
The report notes that Moroccan economy boom has had a positive impact on the jobs market, underlining that unemployment decreased from 13.9% in 1999 to 11% in 2005, to reach 10% last year.
The economic situation across the northern African countries improved in 2006, as the growth rate rose up from 5% in 2005 to 6.1% in 2006.
While Morocco and Tunisia owe their economic growth to the good performance of the agriculture and service sectors, for Algeria and Libya it is the result of accumulating oil revenues. In Egypt the economic boom is due to the rise of the revenues from the tourism sector and the Suez Canal.
However, before we all get too excited, the report warns of the potential risk of a world economic recession in 2007 after 3 years of constant high growth, as the growth rate is expected to move from 3.8 in 2006 to only 3.2 this year.
Meanwhile in Morocco, there seems no end in sight to the growth in the tourist sector. According to the Minister for Tourism, Adil Douiri (pictured above), some 6.4 million tourists visited Morocco in 2006 compared to 4.4 million in 2002.
Speaking at the House of Advisors' question time, the minister underlined that the number of night guests increased by 10% in 2006. He also had words of advice for investors, saying that advertising is an essential tool to accompany the investors' efforts to promote their products.
Morocco has elaborated a strategy - Vision 2010 - that aspires to attract 10 million tourists by 2010 and also aims to create 160,000 beds, bringing the national capacity to 230,000 beds and to create some 600,000 new job opportunities.
The Vision is intended to diversify the tourism product, develop training and partnership in the air transport and other related tourism fields and increase tourism contribution in GDP by 8.5% annually to reach 20% by 2010. All of which will happen - inshallah.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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