Ambassador to Morocco speaks to Egyptian Mail
Egyptian-Arab relations are the foundation of Egyptian foreign policy. Egypt continually works hard to consolidate relations in all aspects and to support Arab countries at various levels. Even so, Egyptian-Moroccan relations are a prominent model of Arab-Arab relations.
Egypt’s ties with Morocco are historical, deep-rooted and unique at the official level, where there is constant communication in all fields and total coordination at all political, security and economic levels.
In an interview with the Egyptian Ambassador to Morocco Achraf Ibrahim, we go into detail about the horizons of joint economic and cultural ties.
Robust economic
co-operation strategy
Ambassador Ibrahim kicked off by saying that it is of paramount importance to interpret the distinguished relations between Egypt and Morocco to economic, commercial and investment co-operation projects for the interest of both economies and peoples.
“One of the main missions of the embassy during the last four years was to enhance the trade and investment links and to establish solid and continuous frameworks for the economic operators to do business easily in both countries,” the ambassador said.
“The Economic and trade section of the embassy worked as an advisory body to all the companies from both sides who are interested in establishing links on the other side on the trade and investment fronts,” the ambassador added.
“The embassy gives economic ties a priority as Egypt and Morocco have similar conditions in terms of growth and industrialisation. Therefore, we seek a kind of integration and increase in trade exchange and investments from both sides, as there are Egyptian investments in Morocco and vice versa.
“The embassy has put high priority for the export promotion activities either trade missions or exhibitions in both countries, while facilitating the expansion of existing export product lines as focus area. So, we have supported hundreds of Egyptian companies to export, expand or even to be established in the Moroccan market.
“We have intervened in solving trade disputes between companies from both sides. We worked with a lot of business associations and councils, either general or sectorial, to strengthen their co-operation agreements with their counterparts on the other side,” the ambassador said.
Volume of trade exchange
Regarding the volume of trade exchange between the two countries, the ambassador said that it amounted to almost $1 billion in 2019, before the Coronavirus pandemic.
“If we compare this figure to the level of trade in 2017, we can say that it almost doubled during the last four years. In 2020, and despite the pandemic and the lockdown for almost six months in Morocco, the level of trade shrank by only 10 per cent.
“This confirms the continuing steady increase recorded in past years, especially on the Egyptian exports side, which is growing in value and in range of products exported to the Moroccan market.
“We export almost everything to Egypt, starting from raw materials to intermediate and finished products. Egyptian exports to Morocco are diverse but are primarily plastics and rubber products, toilet paper, electronics, iron products, and foodstuffs.
“Morocco, meanwhile, exports cars, coffee, tea, and fish to Egypt and the Moroccan demand for the Egyptian products is growing.”
Joint economic agreements
The ambassador stressed the need for integration of the two economies to benefit from the wide range of trade preferential agreements either bilateral, GAFTA or Agadir.
“The potential for trade and economic links to grow in the mutual interest of both sides is to deepen industrial integration. This is the key to a win-win situation to be established through exporting raw and intermediate products to Morocco, benefiting from Agadir agreement and the Pan- Euro-Mediterranean cumulation of origin to re-export to the European markets,” the ambassador said.
“The potential is huge as is the concept of industrial integration with African markets, especially with opportunities granted by the application of the Continental African Free Trade Zone.
“Furthermore, we always call on the private sector on both sides to provide promising investment opportunities in both countries to benefit from the untapped potential.
“Moroccan companies are present in Egypt and investing in industrial, real-estate and construction as well as the flagship Moroccan financial institution, Attijariwafa Bank in Egypt providing financial and insurance services. Morocco is also receiving many Egyptian investors especially in the fields of industrial and tourism activities.”
Promising areas for co-operation
“Egypt is always calling on the importance of achieving industrial integration with Morocco to increase exports to European, Arab, and African markets. There are already studies confirming the success of such integration between the two countries in textiles, automotive industries, foodstuffs and leather to identify new opportunities in the areas of exports and cumulation of origin available to producers in the Agadir region.
“There is also a need for sharing expertise in the economic and industrial fields through the exchange of advanced technologies and training programmes. The energy sector is also very important sector for co-operation in solar and wind energies.”
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