Morocco should strengthen the “African turn” via the conclusion of new agreements that integrate the concern of “co-development”, according to a study published on Wednesday by the Department of Studies and Financial Forecasts (DEPF) and Policy center for the new south (PCNS).
“Morocco has initiated an ‘African turning point’ that should be strengthened, by aiming for the conclusion of agreements which may be primitive forms of co-development agreements, since the countries in question are countries in development ‘and are confronted, in the conduct of their development, with problems comparable to those of Morocco ”, underlined the authors of this study entitled“ The implications of the mode of insertion of Morocco in the world economy on its growth and on its development: Past and future ”.
And to note: “The characteristic of the existing globalization is to put in competition the countries of the South, as regards the choice of the establishments of the firms of the countries of the North (including China, as such) in the South, certainly to exploit deposits or cultivate land but more and more to mobilize a low-cost wage labor force with little protection in terms of labor law, without aiming to meet mainly local demand (this is notably the the case of China in Africa, even if its interventions are qualified as development aid) ”.
This competition does not benefit the countries of the South, only the dominant countries of the “North” (including China), since the assets that a foreign investor attributes to a “developing” country for setting up there (or there take control of a local, private or public company) correspond only partially to those which characterize a “good” development (that which is desired by the population, in its diversity), explained the authors of the said study. A co-development agreement is, then, an agreement that stipulates reciprocal imports under the choice of complementary specializations, they argued, specifying that it is not an agreement that is focused on reducing customs duties, but on what each can bring to the development of the other, since each cannot do everything. Moreover, part of such an agreement must relate to the linking of the qualification standards of products giving rise to reciprocal imports. There must be, in some African countries, a receptivity for standards in line with the essential ecological transition.
Result of the cross-fertilization of reflections initiated by Abdelali Attioui, Head of the Forecasting Models Division at the DEPF and Adnane Chafiq, Head of the Economic Models Department at the DEPF, with the support of the professor at the University of Grenoble, Alpes Bernard Billaudot , this analytical work is based on an innovative modeling exercise which breaks with the models usually used and whose results have highlighted the mode of integration of Morocco into the world economy, as well as the implications which result from it on the development trajectory of the country.
Starting from a comparative analysis of the economic dynamics observed over the periods 1982-1998 and 1998-2018, the study establishes a conceptual analysis grid, carrying original conceptions of industrialization, economic growth and development. This grid represents a model which makes it possible to establish for a medium-term period the table of autonomous contributions to growth and makes it possible to go back to the underlying causes of what is revealed by these tables for the identified periods.
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