France-Morocco High-level Meeting Held in Paris
The 14th France-Morocco High Level Meeting started proceedings Thursday in Paris, under the co-chairmanship of Head of Government, Saad Dine El Otmani, and French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe.
The meeting is intended to take stock of the multidimensional relations between the two countries that cover a wide range of areas, including politics, economy, culture, security and the fight against terrorism.
The High Level Meeting, which was preceded by talks between the two heads of government, is aimed at giving a new impetus to the strategic, multidimensional and exceptional partnership binding the two countries and at deepening bilateral political dialogue, according to the Moroccan news agency MAP.
This meeting will highlight by the signing of several agreements, the agency added.
On the sidelines of the high-level meeting, a France-Morocco Economic Forum is held south of Paris under the theme “France-Morocco: let’s innovate together for a new economic and social impetus”.
Some 300 Moroccan and French officials and businessmen are taking part in the Economic Forum, sponsored by the two countries’ employers’ unions, the MEDEF and the CGEM.
The forum is meant to consolidate further cooperation between the two sides’ private sectors and businessmen. It is expected to come out with recommendations on ways to improve the business climate between the two countries and to address the challenges of vocational training and job creation.
The event unfolds at the level of roundtables under many themes, including “An Ambitious Cooperation”; “Training & Capacity-building: two major challenges for enterprises”, and “The Private sector at the service of territorial development”.
On the eve of the High-Level meeting, Paris and Rabat signed a four-year agreement meant to promote the exchange of experience and know-how on sustainable and resilient urban development, ecological transition and sustainable mobility, culture and heritage, tourism and economic attractiveness, and sustainable development.
With the new pact, signed by the two capitals’Mayors, Paris and Rabat undertake to develop their cooperation, in particular through the sharing of good practice and the training of administrative and technical staff.
In 2018-2019, France ranked as the second investor in Morocco, behind Ireland (whose share reached 20%), and ahead of the United Arab Emirates (8.2%), Denmark (6.8%), Spain (5.9%), Luxembourg (5.2%), the United States (5.2%) and Great Britain (4.7%).
In the first nine months of 2019, imports from France bounced back 11.5%, year on year, to stand at 44.5 billion dirhams.
