Fez Textile Industry in Crisis: Workers Plea for Government Support

"Our sector is vital for the spiritual capital; yet, it receives no support from the city’s officials," laments Mouhsine Idrissi, president of the Moroccan Association of Textile and Clothing Industries (AMITH-Fès-Meknès). The manager’s statement follows the latest "heated" debate between the (RNI) Minister of Industry, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, and the PJD deputy, who is also the mayor of Fez, Driss El Azami El Idrissi, reports L’Économiste.

He wonders what could explain the fact that the regional and municipal councils grant an employment premium to multinationals, but not to Moroccan companies. Mouhsine Idrissi denounces a policy of "double standards" that will undermine jobs in the sector, and mentions the threat of foreign franchise stores on the shops in the Saâda, Narjisse, and the medina neighborhoods, or even the advanced state of disrepair of the industrial zones, etc.

According to the new president of AMITH-Fès-Meknès, this branch has about forty industrial units that employ some 18,000 workers (more than 40,000 previously). According to him, the lost jobs benefit a redeployment in the informal sector (more than 50,000 jobs). This is evidenced by the large number of workshops in the Ben Debbab, Sahb El Ouard, Bab Ftouh, Marja and Ouled Tayeb neighborhoods, which employ hundreds of people in the textile and leather industries.

"This conversion to the informal sector," says Mouhsine Idrissi, "is facilitated by the lack of support for ’real’ industrialists, the absence of a premium for transport and logistics, and the lack of attractiveness."