Head of government, Aziz Akhannouch, said that despite the difficult global context, Morocco, under the leadership of the King, had shown “a resilience that has been widely applauded by international organizations and rating agencies, by adopting measures to support the budget and adhering to structural reforms, while maintaining balances.” Economic macro.
Akhannouch, who was speaking during the opening of the works of the National Debate on Business Climate in Rabat, on Wednesday morning, stressed that “the government has been keen, since the beginning of its mandate, to support national companies in this difficult circumstance, as it worked to pay the arrears of the value-added tax due for the benefit of companies, which amounted to Its total cover is 19.5 billion dirhams, within the framework of supporting the treasury of affected companies, especially small and medium ones.
The government has also taken, Akhannouch continues, “several measures aimed at mitigating the impact of high prices and the shortage of imported raw materials on public procurement contractors,” noting that “the government has opened, in partnership with the National Office for Electricity and Drinking Water, the right to self-produce electricity and sell the surplus to network managers.” electrical. It also worked to accelerate the supply of electricity to industrialists from renewable energy sources of very high voltage, high voltage and medium voltage.”
On the other hand, and despite the high costs of electricity production, the prime minister explained that the latter “decided to maintain the stability of electricity prices, while significant increases in these prices were observed at the international level. In neighboring countries in the Mediterranean, there are increases that have reached 91% and 55%.” .
“The government has mobilized significant financial resources and worked to implement many measures throughout the year 2022, with the aim of reducing the impact of inflation on the purchasing power of families, especially by maintaining electricity prices and supporting the transport sector, as well as subsidizing the import of wheat, gas and sugar,” confirms Akhannouch before To stress that “all these and other measures have made it possible to contain inflation levels in the Kingdom, as had it not been for these measures that mobilized more than 40 billion dirhams from the state budget, families and businesses would have suffered from greater levels of inflation ranging between 10 and 11%, instead of 6.6.” % that were recorded in 2022.
In parallel, the speaker pointed to “a courageous government decision represented in maintaining the level of public investment effort, as the state’s general budget issuances amounted to about 94 billion dirhams in 2022, an increase of 16 billion dirhams compared to 2021, with a record implementation rate of 85%.”
Public investments worth 300 billion dirhams
“Your attendance today for the proceedings of this meeting is an affirmation of the special importance of improving the business climate in developing investment and enhancing the attractiveness of the national economy,” Akhannouch addresses the attendees, including public officials and actors in the private sector, in the presence of the Wali of Bank Al-Maghrib and the President of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises.
He added, “Improving the business climate is a strategic focus of national public policies, based on giving priority to national entrepreneurship as a basic economic actor, in line with the royal directives of His Majesty King Mohammed VI.”
And after the head of the government apparatus stated that “the national economy achieved a growth of 1.3% in 2022, which is a desirable rate in view of the difficult international context and the difficult climatic conditions witnessed during the agricultural year,” he stressed “continuing to support the purchasing power of families in 2023, while mobilizing investments A general interest of 300 billion dirhams, with the aim of achieving the goal of 4% as a growth rate.
Job creation
“The creation of job opportunities is at the heart of the government’s concerns,” Akhannouch continues, stressing that “which indicates the importance of the efforts made, the decline in the unemployment rate in 2022, despite the difficult context.”
In this regard, the Prime Minister cited indicative figures expressing “a decrease in the unemployment rate from 12.3% in 2021 to 11.8% in 2022. The net level of job creation in non-agricultural activities reached 188,000 jobs in 2022, to maintain the average level of the number of jobs created in the period Between 2015 and 2021, amounting to 191,000 job positions at an annual rate,” he said, referring to the increase in the added value of non-agricultural activities to 3.6% in 2022, which is higher than the average recorded during the period 2015-2021, which amounted to 3.1% annually.
Akhannouch did not neglect to express “a great governmental ambition expressed in the year 2023 to increase the number of newly created jobs,” saying that it is “an ambition supported by the recovery of non-agricultural activities, on the one hand, and the improvement of the added value of agricultural activities after the recent climate changes, on the other hand.”
The same official put this ambition in the context of “the government’s realization of the essential role of providing permanent job positions in economic take-off, and its conviction that government work can only bear fruit in an atmosphere of social peace, so the government has made the institutionalization of social dialogue a priority for it. Indeed, the year 2022 witnessed a series of social dialogue sessions that resulted in the signing of a historic national agreement on April 30, 2022, which granted new gains to the working class, and enabled, in a difficult context, to support the purchasing power of wage earners in the public and private sectors.
The ground for dialogue is the basis for “improving the legal system that regulates employment,” as “the government intends, within this framework, and in consultation with its social partners, to work on reforming the Labor Code and issuing legislative texts regulating the right to strike, as well as legislative texts regulating trade union bodies.”
Roadmap to improve the business climate
“Thanks to the attractiveness of the business climate, which enabled Morocco to be ranked 53rd in the latest World Bank Doing Business classification, the Kingdom was chosen by the World Bank Corporation among 60 countries to implement the new business climate assessment index, which was called: A stimulating business environment. (Business Enabling Environment)”, stresses Akhannouch, considering it “an opportunity for actors in our country, from the public and private sectors and civil society, to mobilize in order to emphasize the continuous improvement of the business climate in our country.”
In response to the expectations of economic actors, the government has embarked on preparing a new strategic roadmap to improve the business environment by the year 2026, in line with the royal directives and the basic conclusions of the new development model, the commitments contained in the government program, as well as the proposals of the white paper of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises. It is the result of close dialogue with the private sector in order to define its interests and strategic priorities.
The roadmap approved by the National Committee for Business Climate constitutes a decisive turning point in managing the work of this committee since its establishment in 2010. It is based on a pioneering approach and multi-year programming, and is based on 3 main levers that include 13 structural projects, in addition to a fourth horizontal pillar.
The first pillar has been identified as a pivotal goal of “improving the structural conditions of the business climate”, and it is a common priority targeting the entire economic fabric, regardless of the size of the enterprise, while the second pillar is concerned with creating favorable conditions for the development of industrial contracting in order to support productive sovereignty and support the structural transformation of the national economy, while The third pillar aims to spread a strong entrepreneurial culture to create an innovative approach to investment.
Finally, given the strong interdependence between the field of improving the business climate and the rules of ethics and integrity that characterize it, the dimension of “ethics, integrity and combating corruption” was adopted as a fourth, horizontal pillar, supporting the first three pillars.
Implementing this roadmap and activating government measures would contribute to boosting investment and improving the attractiveness of the business climate in the Kingdom, which aspires to become “a country that enjoys strong political stability and a strategic geographical location, and becomes a regional pole for production and export, in line with the royal directives.”
Achieving this ambition, according to Akhannouch, “will only come through the mobilization and involvement of all actors, especially the private sector, which we aspire to play a leading role in achieving these goals. Therefore, I call in particular on our economic partners, national and foreign investors, to advance this dynamism and enhance their investments in the Kingdom in order to achieve the comprehensive development that we all aspire to.