Rabat - Morocco's head of government Abdelilah Benkirane underlined on Tuesday efforts made by the government to restore confidence in the economy and upgrade social conditions.
Benkirane, who presented a mid-way assessment of his coalition government's action at a plenary session of the two parliamentary chambers, stressed the government's concern, at the economic level, to control macroeconomic balances, start carrying out structural reforms and other essential legislative, institutional and procedures reforms to improve the business climate.
He noted, in this context, that Morocco has succeeded in reversing the negative trend of public finances and external balances as the budget deficit was cut in one year from 7.3 pc in 2012 to 5.5 pc in 2013. Likewise, he went on, Morocco reduced the current account deficit of the balance of payments from 9.7 pc in 2012 to 7.6 pc in 2013.
Benkirane further added that indebtedness will regress in the coming year to less than 60pc of the GDP, stressing that growth rate reached 4.4 pc in 2013 compared to 2.7 pc in 2012.
He cited tourism which posted end 2013 an 8 pc increase in the number of visitors, yielding MAD 58 billion of hard currency, which is a growth of 2 pc compared to 2010.
He went on that the government also launched the 2014-2020 industrial development plan which seeks to create half a million of jobs by 2020 and increase industry's share in the GDP by 9 points, from 14 to 23 pc by 2020.
To carry out this plan, the government will have to develop 1,000 hectares of state-owned land to create industrial compounds and establish a public industrial investment fund, worth MAD 20 billion, to be used for enterprises and strong added-value sectors that develop exports and create job opportunities.
Benkirane further stated that the government has applied the national preference principle in awarding state procurement while endeavoring to improve the investment climate and encourage private investments, by consolidating partnership with economic operators and laying down bases of permanent dialog and consultation.
As far as small and medium-sized enterprises are concerned, the head of government stressed that several old and persisting claims were met through a train of measures, especially reducing by the corporate tax by 10pc for companies posting less than MAD 300,000 of net fiscal profit.