New development model should end oligopoly and foster fair competition – regulator says

The competition council called for putting an end to monopolies that created an oligopolistic situation in Morocco, citing the sectors of fuel distribution, banks, insurance companies and cement producers.

In its annual report for 2019, the first since the council’s reactivation the same year, the council recommended for the new development model to break up with the hindrances to free competition.

The council diagnosed the hindrances to market economy in Morocco pointing notably to the prevalence of rent seeking, abuse of the dominant position in the market and connivance between politics and business.

Fighting these calamities requires building a national integrated competition system, head of the council Driss Guerraoui said in the report.

The way will necessarily have to go through the strict implementation of the law to ensure equal chances between all economic operators, consumers and territories.

Special attention was also paid to developing an awareness raising campaign to sensitize on competition issues, the report said.

The council also called for ending the preferential treatment of some historical operators who earned their dominant position in the market from the use of state infrastructure, such as telecom companies and electricity providers.

Light was cast on the council in mid-2018 amidst an unprecedented consumer boycott campaign that triggered the debate on the need for a competition regulator.

After years of lethargy the council was reactivated in 2019 and has started its functions with issuing a view against capping fuel prices, which it deemed as unconducive to free competition.

Morocco has extended the deadline for a committee tasked by the King to elaborate a new development model for another six months starting from last June.