Morocco Emerges as Potential Economic Leader in Post-COVID Africa

"Morocco, a future champion of Africa?" This is how the French magazine titled its analysis of Morocco’s assets in these times of coronavirus. The analysis was based on a recent note on Economic Policy by the Senegalese-Swiss, Papa Demba Thiam) written under the direction of the Moroccan Institute of Strategic Intelligence (IMIS) and on the strategic analysis of Ghalia Mokhtari on post-Covid-19 Morocco.

For Le Point, "Morocco can clearly be at the heart of a network that gives it assets both towards its main economic partner, Europe, and towards an area towards which it intends to project itself with all its might: sub-Saharan Africa". "The reflections and actions undertaken in Morocco both by the government and by the social partners, including the CGEM as the main one, the support of this health crisis but also on the path of economic recovery, have ended up confirming the Moroccan ambition to count even more on the international geo-economic chessboard," notes the publication.

According to the author of the article, Malick Diawara, Morocco can transform its comparative advantages into competitive advantages, noting that the kingdom has embarked on a salutary economic recovery process. An economic recovery, he says, combines high-impact reflections and initiatives aimed both at the creation and development of new local value chains and at the strengthening and adoption of new modes of international cooperation.

In the automotive sector, "the absolute weapon is of course the know-how, but also and above all the competitiveness" and "Morocco has managed to combine these two qualities for the greatest happiness of the PSA group and Renault-Nissan," says the French magazine. Le Point also congratulated Morocco which, on the "very high instructions" of King Mohammed VI, sent medical aid to 15 African countries.

"In any case, for Morocco, the time has come for a break in continuity towards a chosen modernity in a partnership between the private sector, civil society and the State, which we must remember is, at three and a half centuries old, the oldest on the continent. The conditions seem to be in place to make the difference definitively. Buoyed by its soft power that it has sharpened since the accession to the throne of King Mohammed VI, Morocco has seen its pride boosted by the acclaimed quality of its management of the Covid-19 crisis. The energies there seem fully prepared to engage in both national and international challenges," concludes the magazine.