Moroccan government seeks to boost handicrafts sector

2008-04-07

A new stimulus plan for the handicrafts sector announced by the Moroccan government last week will help small traders with financing, training and selling their products to new international markets.

By Sarah Touahri for Magharebia in Rabat – 07/04/08

[Sarah Touahri] Speaking at a marketing strategy forum on Wednesday (April 2nd), Moroccan Handicrafts Minister Mohamed Boussaid discussed a new stimulus plan for the handicrafts sector.

In an effort to increase international exposure for Moroccan handicrafts, the government has set up a brand-new ministerial department orientated towards marketing the sector. The new marketing policy targets the United States, eastern countries including Russia, and the Gulf states.

"I don’t want to compromise the handicrafts sector by focusing solely on five markets (Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy), some of [which] are already showing signs of saturation," Secretary of State for Handicrafts Anis Birou told a marketing strategy forum on Wednesday (April 2nd).

By 2015, the government hopes to increase exports of Moroccan handicrafts (currently worth 700m dirhams) tenfold and raise domestic sales turnover to 24 billion dirhams. These targets will be achieved by marketing handicrafts to tourists and wealthy Moroccans, Birou explained, adding that exhibitions are seen as the best way to promote the products.

"I want our marketing policy to give pride of place to our independent craftsmen, who aren’t able to make a profit from what they make every day. I want to give them the opportunity to go and see what is happening elsewhere and to attend international exhibitions, even if only as observers, so that they can find out about the competition," Birou announced.

By creating hundreds of small to medium-sized handicrafts businesses, the stimulus plan will get independent traders out of the informal sector. These small handicraft operations will also be supported through training, feasibility studies, management and financing.

Secretary Birou believes now is the time to step up efforts to ensure that the industry, which already employs 2 million people, develops and positions itself within the economy. Noting that the "sector is bursting with potential," he pointed out that 10 million Moroccans are supported in some way by the handicrafts industry.

"The sector has an impact on the economy, our culture and our society. That’s ten million people who consume every day, dream every day and have ambitions… It’s a third of the population, which is a fundamental part of Moroccan life and society," he said.

The government has already launched its plan to structure the industry; a committee is currently preparing a platform project in partnership with the country’s 24 chambers of handicrafts. A provisional version will then be put forward to industry leaders in a bid to seek majority endorsement. According to Birou, the bill on the organisation of the sector will be submitted to parliament during the October session.

Handicraft professionals are hailing the government’s new strategy, but some stress that the task of bringing order to the sector is long overdue.

Leatherworker Hammouda Bebrahim told Magharebia that craft workers have waited decades for a law organising the industry: "If the government can put a law in place by the end of the year, that’ll be the first step. Then craft workers will finally have a framework of regulations protecting them and setting out their rights and responsibilities."