Madrid – Industry and Trade Minister Ryad Mezzour held, Friday in Madrid, a working meeting with Spanish Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Reyes Maroto, on prospects for developing industrial cooperation and trade between the two countries.
This meeting was an opportunity to draw up a positive assessment of bilateral cooperation in industrial and business, given the momentum between the two countries since last April, following Spanish Government President Pedro Sánchez’s visit to Morocco, at the invitation of HM King Mohammed VI, resulting in a roadmap, being implemented.
The working meeting, held in the presence of the Moroccan Ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, was an opportunity to confirm the willingness of both parties to move from a relationship essentially commercial to a multi-sectoral partnership.
This partnership is based on the complementarities between both countries’ economies, allowing the implementation of joint developments with high added value, in a global context strongly marked by current geopolitical tensions, the energy crisis and the repercussions of COVID-19.
“We had an extremely interesting working meeting with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism of the Kingdom of Spain,” Mezzour told M24, MAP’s 24-hour news channel.
In the same regard, the Moroccan minister stressed that the meeting focused on “the future of industrial and commercial cooperation between our two countries which are already extremely interconnected.”
Morocco is the gateway to Africa and Spain is the gateway to Europe, said the minister. “We have common projects extremely specific, common ambitions to develop a platform even more integrated and productive, with the seizure of opportunities in relocation of value chains and to strengthen food security, energy and health and the sovereignty of industrial competitiveness.”
”We share common ambitions for the implementation of the will of HM the King and the President of the Spanish government for a roadmap where the two countries work hand in hand to strengthen this strategic alliance,” added Mezzour.
This willingness encourages both parties “to further deepen the commercial interactions that bind us and better understand the regional industrial value chains in a win-win logic,” he said.
To achieve this goal, the two parties “have agreed to establish a joint team to develop the new framework of economic partnership, putting forward concrete initiatives in areas of cooperation, to be concluded on the sidelines of the High Level Meeting,” scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2023.
Spain is increasingly consolidating its position as a strategic partner of Morocco with 17 billion euros of trade in 2021. First customer and supplier of the Kingdom, Spain is also the third investor in Morocco. The Kingdom absorbs 51% of Spanish exports to Africa, making it Spain’s leading client in Africa.
Source: Agency Morocaine De Presse