Top Moroccan businessmen from America to visit Casablanca

24/03/2006

As part of a Moroccan-American partnership, a number of top young Moroccan businessmen working in high technology in the United States travelled to their home country to take part in a seminar organised in Casablanca on 14 March.

By Hassan Benmehdi for Magharebia in Casablanca -- 24/03/06

[File] The Moroccan businessmen hope their trip to Casablanca will help their country.

Driven by the desire to make a contribution to the socio-economic development of their native country, young Moroccans from major American universities are hoping to forge a link between the United States and their homeland, capitalising on their rich entrepreneurial and managerial experience gained with giant American corporations such as Oracle, Cisco, Citigroup and Lehman Brothers.

Coming from several regions across the United States, the group travelled to Casablanca with the aim of meeting Moroccan entrepreneurs and to explore the possibilities of launching new joint projects to meet the challenges of competition and to respond to the needs of the market. The meeting, called "The Strength of Partnerships: Moroccan-American Bridges", offered a platform for constructive reflection and dialogue between American entrepreneurs of Moroccan origin and Moroccan industrialists on the enormous business opportunities offered by the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries.

According to the majority of participants, the meeting, organised by the Association of Moroccan Professionals in America and the Moroccan-American Circle with the assistance of several public and private organizations, was fruitful at all levels.

It featured presentations on the major growth sectors such as telecommunications, information technology, banking and financial services, and biotechnology. Another striking feature was the unanimous wish of the participants to mobilise all the potential of the Moroccan community in the United States to support economic growth in Morocco, which has made off-shore operations, a sector with high added value, a strategic choice.

The speakers also pointed out the importance of greater harmonisation between Moroccan and American business communities to give added dynamism to trade between the two countries, as part of a mutually beneficial partnership following the FTA coming into force in January 2006.

The young Moroccan businessmen from the United States, optimistic about the future, constantly reiterated their wish to act to set up a win-win partnership between the two countries. After two days of work and consideration, they said that the next meetings between the two countries would look at projects that would be of widespread benefit.