Athus goes politics in the Kingdom: pauses, often trampling; then excitement and focus both internally and internationally. Managing is not the best policy: far from it. You have to face it, surf the wave, scrutinize the weather from time to time and start off on the right foot. What is striking is the gap between domestic policy and foreign policy: the gear ratio is certainly not the same, it makes the difference.
Internally, it is announced that 2023 will be a year of recovery and economic recovery. It is desirable after 2022 which has been difficult, with a mediocre growth rate of 0.8%. Today, 3.1% is expected, according to the IMF. Is this achievable, given that many factors are not controllable, volatile, linked to the great uncertainties weighing on the international environment. Citizens are well aware of all these constraints: on a daily basis, they follow what is happening elsewhere. The 2% inflation forecast by the government does not seem credible to them. Rainfall remains uncertain in mid-February; the filling rateage of dams is close to 32%; the unemployment rate fell a little by 0.4% to stand at 11.4% at the end of the past year; and FDI amounted to some 20 billion DH.
Purchasing power: Growl…
What has been a problem for years is the low socio-economic return on investment. Last Wednesday in Rabat, before the Council for Development and Solidarity (CDS) chaired by Mohamed Benamor, the Wali of Bank Al-Maghrib, Abdellatif Jouahri, again highlighted the particularities of this situation: the effort to Morocco’s investment, which is 30% – one of the highest in the world – only generates insufficient economic growth. The trend is even downward, its employment content is increasingly low and its impact is uneven in the regions. Worrying. On the labor market, in 2021-2022 only the annual creation of some 90,000 jobs was recorded. However, the population of working age has increased by an average of 380,000 people per year. What to do ? Getting down to promoting investment, of course, but by making strong inflections. One of them relates to the removal of obstacles to the development of companies, a productive fabric where VSEs largely predominate, with a percentage of 88%.
Another concerns the priority agenda given to the promotion of investment: Mohammed VI Fund with 15 billion DH budgeted in 2023 and 30 others to be mobilized, new Investment Charter… An ambitious objective has also been set by HM the King in his speech to Parliament last October: this is the “National Investment Pact” targeting 500 billion dirhams and 500,000 jobs by 2026. A long-term realization of the ambition of economic and social emergence. All of this comes under what could be called macroeconomics. But does it print on the side of the citizens? This is because their daily lives are confronted with the continuous deterioration of their purchasing power as a result of soaring prices. The general climate is one of discontent, discontent and a dynamic of protest which seems to be set in motion and to develop, especially in the coming weeks before Ramadan in five weeks. On the front line, we must mention the Democratic Confederation of Labor (CDT) which announced, as of Sunday February 19, various actions (marches, sit-ins, etc.). A mobilization also declined around go-slows (slow work, sporadic and repeated suspension). Another front: that of consumer associations: they are distinguished by greater visibility and call into question the official argument of the consequences of cold.
In fact, several factors combine, in particular inflation, the increase in the cost of transport and diesel, insufficient rainfall and the situation of the marketing system. The proliferation of intermediaries pushes strongly in this direction; and the government, no more than those that preceded it, has not decided to tackle a reform of the marketing channels. Weight of lobbies and interest networks, electoral and other clientelism, lack of voluntarism: so many factors. So speculation persists and seems to be structural. The government announces that it has taken this question in hand with checks and sanctions, here and there, but without seriously modifying the viability of this system. There’s more. It is practically accepted that no structuring reform can bear fruit if the informal economy is not taken into account. The official discourse always refers to it, but isn’t it a strategy that should be implemented?
Diplomatic agenda: AU, Paris, Algiers
A busy agenda for the coming months. It is also internationally. In the immediate future, an AU summit is being held on February 18/19, in Addis Ababa. Morocco will be represented there by the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch. The Kingdom, since its institutional return to this continental organization at the end of January 2017, has enjoyed particular credibility there. Confirmed leadership with a second term on the Peace and Security Council (PSC) for three years (2023-2025), after that of 2018-2020. He works there to give a new dynamism to this body. The question of the Moroccan Sahara preoccupies the majority of the members of the AU following the hostile activities of Algeria, coupled with those of the separatist movement.
The “Tangier Appeal” dated November 4, 2022, signed today by 18 African countries, urges the exclusion or at the very least the suspension of the so-called “SADR”. At the regional level, two issues reflect tensions: with France, with which “warming up” is still questionable; with also Algeria, which is increasingly settling into an equation of hostility, even conflict. Recurring turbulence fueling a rise in perils with unforeseeable consequences…
By Mustapha SEHIMI Professor of Law (UM5, Rabat) – Political scientist