Résidences Dar Saada (RDS) is a Moroccan social and intermediate housing pure play listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange since December 2014. In less than four years, RDS successfully transitioned from a medium-sized real estate company to the third major operator in the Moroccan social and intermediate housing market, with about 5990 units delivered in 2014, compared to 896 units in 2009. Following…
In line with a global trend to increase private sector activity in infrastructure development, Morocco is now host to several major public-private partnership (PPP) projects, including the kingdom’s largest power station and port at Jorf Lasfar and Tanger-Med, respectively. PPP success has left the government keen to boost the number of such projects, and privately financed public infrastructure…
Over the past 15 years Morocco has signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with some of the largest economies in the world. This has impacted the kingdom’s trade figures, though in some cases it has also been followed by increases in trade deficits with these partners. The next major accord Morocco is likely to sign is a Deep and Comprehensive FTA (DCFTA) with the EU that expands the existing Association…
The Moroccan insurance industry is one of the kingdom’s largest sectors of institutional investors. It is heavily invested in local equities, which has given rise to concerns that this is exposing it to high levels of risk. However, plans to gradually introduce new solvency regulations should mitigate this by making insurers choose between putting up additional capital to cover the risks or reducing…
A comprehensive reform programme to improve access and enhance the performance of the education system has been under way in Morocco. Notably, the authorities are working to restructure the sector as a whole by grouping universities under umbrella bodies to increase their visibility on a national and regional level. This will also help achieve greater economies of scale. For instance, in September…
At present, the vocational training system in Morocco consists of one main public provider, the Bureau of Professional Training and Employment Promotion (Office de la Formation Professionnelle et de la Promotion du Travail, OFPPT), which was created in 1974 to increase the pool of professionally trained citizens. In 2014/15, the OFPPT trained 370,000 people, including over 100,000 for industrial trades,…
A key component of Vision 2020, the national tourism strategy that aims to attract 20m visitors by the end of the decade, domestic tourists are now seen as one of Morocco’s most reliable source markets in the face of volatile foreign arrivals and uncertainty associated with current regional instability. One testament to this is the Ministry of Tourism’s latest figures, which show Moroccan tourists…
Under its national tourism development plan, Vision 2020, Morocco has set itself the ambitious goal of raising bed capacity in the hospitality sector to 375,000 beds by the end of the decade. As of 2014, classified hotel bed capacity stood at 216,386, up from 176,630 in 2010 and 95,180 in 2000, with Marrakech having the largest portion (30%), followed by Agadir (16%) and Casablanca (8%). Despite this…
Despite having different climate conditions from the rainy plains of the northern part of the kingdom, Morocco’s southern provinces have been able to establish a small but active agriculture sector that takes advantage of large aquifers and high temperatures. As a result, agriculture – and animal husbandry in particular – represents a growing proportion of the region’s economy and a key sector…
With vast quantities of maritime resources in the waters along its coast, Morocco’s southern provinces have transformed the fisheries sector into one of the region’s most important sources of income. Continued growth, however, will depend on the local industry’s capacity to raise the number of value-added activities carried out locally on its annual catch. The southern provinces’ resources…
