The Portugal-Morocco Economic Council
The high point of the visit to Morocco by the Secretary of State for Internationalization of Portugal, Eurico Brilhante Dias, this week was the official role of the Portugal-Morocco Economic Council, with the Business Confederation of Portugal (CIP) and the Confédération Général des Entreprises du Maroc (CGEM) its main promoters. This platform is interested in leveraging business cooperation between the two countries in the digital, textile, automobile, aeronautical, health, energy and metalworking sectors.
Morocco has had eyes on Portugal for a long time, and it has become increasingly public, and even aggressive, as the diplomatic crisis escalated with neighboring Spain. So that there is currently a new type of credit for Moroccan companies that want to invest exclusively in Portugal, with very specific contours. This is something new, still without a technical name, but that comes close to a specific credit line for investing in Portugal. Like? Through the purchase of part of the shares of Portuguese companies, not having, however, the intention of these investors to establish themselves in Portugal. The objective is to create partnerships in the aforementioned sectors, knowledge obtained through training and experience created over ten years, for example, and then channel this same knowledge to its parent companies in Morocco, the point of origin of the investment. Why?
Because Morocco does not sell the gold to the bandit, because this approach to Portugal is part of the logic of diversification and escape from the dependencies it has on Spain and France, because Morocco, already a lighthouse in the Maghreb, Sahel and West Africa, has continental ambitions in Africa and it will only be important as such with a strong industry, as a producer and to produce more and better it needs to buy knowledge. This is the reason for this Moroccan onslaught in Portugal. For example, Morocco currently needs to compensate for the loss of natural gas that Algeria has been denying it since the beginning of this month. Portugal does not have gas, but it can supply electricity, so a cable between our countries must fill this void before 2030.
Following the same logic of diversification, the maritime connection between Tangier and Portimão was planned for last summer. In this regard, the “bad luck of the Távoras, which belonged to the Moroccans”, was this wish and announcement that it took place in a municipal election year. For this reason, the process taken in Portuguese style and wrapped up security with port conditions and silences coming from Lisbon, while the Foreigners and Borders Service is (va) in a trance and like other police officers and the Independent Tax Authority, the worse the better! In an electoral campaign, a trailer for this “business environment”, the same ones that positively provided the break of an exclusive Spaniard even said “the maritime connection with Morocco will only be made if it is positive for Portimão”, which “prognoses only at the end of the match “! On the other side of the coin, the business community in our north had already guaranteed an average of 150 trucks a day that would travel to their north through Portimão, immediately guaranteeing the economic viability of the project.
Morocco runs the risk of giving us some good lessons in pragmatism and disengagement, a condition that we believe is a Portuguese exclusive!
Politologist / Arabist. www.maghreb-mahrek.pt.
Write according to the old spelling