Fez Medina - a ghost town - as artisans suffer

The Medina of Fez has become a ghost town where, despite the measures put in place by the State, many artisans are still deprived of income. Government containment measures to restrict the spread of the Covid-19 virus have had a tangible impact on the daily lives of artisans in the Fès-Meknès Region. 

Many artisans fail the conditions of eligibility for the government's economic rescue measures. The pandemic has weakened thousands of traditional artisans due to the difficulty they encounter in marketing their products, without being able to guarantee their daily livelihood.

In Fez, the craft sector supports more than 260,000 people, or 27% of the inhabitants of the old medina. The turnover of this activity amounts to more than 4 MMDH, or 47% of Moroccan exports in the sector. In total, the region has 38,045 craft enterprises and cooperatives and no less than 376 professional organisations. Currently, almost all the craftsmen in Fez have put their personal and family heritage at stake and quickly found themselves in difficulty.

Most artisans are wondering about the initiative that the government is about to take to support traditional artisans to promote their products in this recession that is hitting the national and global economy.

In this context, the parliamentarian Driss El Alaoui El Houssaini, member of the Chamber of Crafts of the Fez-Meknes Region, sent a request to the Head of Government and to the Minister of Tourism, Crafts, Air Transport and the social economy, inviting them to integrate artisans and their families into the most deprived social category which will benefit from state social assistance, which will no doubt help them to overcome this situation.

The last survey carried out by the Moroccan Confederation of VSEs-SMEs revealed that the structures most impacted by this health crisis are VSEs, as well as self-entrepreneurs, with a rate of 90%. SMEs and cooperatives, on the other hand, show a rate of 8% and 2% respectively. It should be noted that very small and medium-sized enterprises (TPME) cover 95% of the Moroccan entrepreneurial sphere.

Constantly animated by its numerous bazaars, its shops, its craftsmen and its itinerant merchants, the atmosphere which characterises the narrow alleys of the medina has drastically metamorphosed and made this most important medieval city in the world a ghost city.

SHARE THIS!