A task force is working on the new model dedicated to MREs

A meeting of the ministerial commission for the affairs of Moroccans residing abroad and migration, held this Tuesday, August 30, kicked off the reflection on the reform to which the Sovereign called in his speech on August 20 last.

According to our information, at the end of this meeting chaired by Aziz Akhannouch, where he set the priorities for the action to be taken in accordance with the royal guidelines, a task force was set up to work on the subject.

Thematic commissions and a three-month deadline

“Thematic commissions will be set up to work, reflect and make preliminary proposals over the next two or three months at the most,” says Karim Amor, president of MeM by CGEM, the 13th region dedicated to Moroccan skills and entrepreneurs. from abroad of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM), present at the meeting.

“This task force will bring together the contributions of each of the parties in order to offer Moroccans around the world tools that make sense. There is a desire to to converge public policies towards an architecture supported by the Prime Minister and the MAE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, editor’s note) making it possible to determine a new roadmap. This with a fixed timetable and commitments on both sides, ”assures us our source.

According to the latter, one of the important elements of this meeting is “the real awareness of the need to pose a new model in line with the royal vision”.

“We will be working on a new copy dedicated to Moroccans in the world today. The characteristics of this community have evolved over the past 40 years. The profiles of the first two generations are not the same as those of the third and fourth generations. We must therefore introduce an approach that concerns and integrates all of these generations,” adds Karim Amor. CGEM and the ministry in charge of investment, through the Moroccan Investment and Export Development Agency (AMDIE), are in the process of finalizing a partnership agreement aimed at “addressing” the community of MREs interested in investment and entrepreneurship in Morocco, he also indicates.

Who are our MREs?

The work, the launch of which was given at this meeting, will begin with the consolidation of the data available on the community of Moroccans in the world (MDM). For the purposes of this article, we have contacted several relevant authorities to obtain information on MREs. Who are they ? What is the profile of the MRE investor? And overall, what do we know about them?

None of the authorities we contacted were able to provide us with precise and documented answers. All explain to us that “the little data available is scattered and not aggregated”.

According to our information, the various stakeholders, who were also present at the meeting held on Tuesday, August 30, agreed to consolidate their databases to have a more global image of Moroccans in the world.

Here’s what we know based on public data. It is a community of more than 5 million people, 75% of which is concentrated in Europe, particularly in France and Spain.

According to the report of the Special Commission on the Development Model (CSMD), which devoted a chapter Moroccans around the world as development actors, this population is “younger (47% of the total) and feminized (~50%)”. His level of training “is now higher than that of their compatriots residing in Morocco”.

In terms of socio-professional integration in the host countries, “only a limited proportion of MDMs, estimated at 7.5% of the working population, have been able to successfully progress in their professional career”.

“The majority of active MDMs come from modest and medium socio-professional groups, operating mainly in the tertiary and industrial sector, and to a lesser extent in agriculture and construction”, specifies the CSMD in its report.

100 billion dirhams of transfer in 2022?

From an economic perspective, MDMs contribute financially through two channels. On the one hand transfers, which peaked in 2021 at a historic record of 93.7 billion dirhams, an increase of 37.5% compared to 2020, a year which was then considered an exception.

The current rate of transfers suggests a new record at the end of 2022. At the end of July 2022, transfers reached 58.2 billion dirhams, up 7.4% compared to the same period in 2021. In value, this increase is more than 4 billion dirhams. If this growth trend continues, the symbolic threshold of 100 billion DH will be exceeded.

In addition, MREs also contribute through sight deposits and savings accounts in Moroccan banks. In 2021, out of the MAD 753 billion in deposits from individuals, 185.9 billion were held by MREsor 24.9%.

What about the investments made by these Moroccans in the motherland? We know very little about it. Investment projects remain quantitatively weak, with only nearly 8% of transfers. According to the CSMD report, investments are very concentrated in sectors that are not very innovative: in total, almost 60% of MDM investments are made in real estate or construction.

Reform priorities

The framework in which the work of reflection must be undertaken has already been set by the Sovereign in his speech. “What have we done to strengthen the patriotic feeling of our immigrants? Do the legislative framework in place and public policies take their specificities into account? Are the administrative procedures adapted to their current expectations? Have we provided them with the necessary religious and educational support? Have we provided them with the support required and the conditions favorable to the success of their investment projects? asked King Mohammed VI, concluding that despite everything that has been done so far, “the device remains insufficient”.

Aziz Akhannouch translated these orientations during the meeting of the ministerial committee by setting out the following priorities:

– the consolidation of the cultural and spiritual attachment of MREs;

– the establishment of a mechanism to support the talents of Moroccans around the world;

– support for their initiatives and projects;

– encouraging and supporting their investments, within the framework of the incentives granted by the new Investment Charter;

– participation of Moroccans living abroad in governance bodies and consultative institutions;

– the modernization and upgrading, as soon as possible, of the institutional framework relating to Moroccans around the world, particularly with regard to the reorganization of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CCME);

– the complementarity of the action programs of the departments concerned with the affairs of Moroccans around the world;

– improvement of the services provided to Moroccans living abroad through the materialization of ongoing programs and projects, particularly the program relating to social coverage for their benefit with the countries with which Morocco has cooperation agreements in this area;

– the simplification of administrative procedures and the use of digitalisation.

Diagnoses, strategic orientations and objectives are known. It is now necessary to transform this set into concrete actions, thus initiating the in-depth reform.

The Royal Speech of August 20: a double challenge to be met (Driss El Yazami)