US-Funded Digital Platform to Boost Investment in Morocco’s Laâyoune Region

Announced as an integral part of the "Promoting Economic Opportunities in Dakhla and Laâyoune" project, "Laâyouneconnect" aims to serve as a channel for promoting the economic potential and assets of Laâyoune. Its mission will be to directly connect companies in the region with potential investors (national and foreign) through an innovative search engine allowing the search and geolocation of companies according to their sector of intervention as well as their areas of interest.

The digital infrastructure in the testing phase will have as its main objective to facilitate opportunities for exchanges, B2B, investments, and economic collaboration at the national and international level in several key sectors, in particular, agribusiness, fishing and aquaculture, tourism, the blue economy, renewable energies and logistics, specifies in a press release, the Regional Investment Center (CRI) of Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra.

It is in this context that several activities aimed at promoting investment and territorial marketing in the region, as well as strengthening the capacities of women and young entrepreneurs, were launched in March 2021, notes the CRI.

This project implemented by the international consulting firm JE Austin Associates (based in Washington with a regional office in Rabat) is financed by the government of the United States of America through the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).