NASSAU—Morocco is to send a technical team to the Bahamas early next year following talks between officials from several Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries and their Moroccan counterparts as the region seeks to lure investors from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahamas Foreign Minister Frederick Mitchell has said.
He said apart from the Bahamas, the other Caricom countries represented at the talks were St Lucia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada.
He said the discussions with the Morocco government included the possibility of scholarships for Caribbean students to attend Moroccan technical schools, tourism exchanges and agricultural and fisheries processes and developments.
Mitchell had travelled to Morocco to attend the Fourth Summit of the Group of Friends of Syria last week and he told reporters that the summit afforded The Bahamas an opportunity to have an outreach to Dubai.
“We are not actively involved as a country, in this issue; but took the opportunity, since the visit was sponsored by the Kingdom of Morocco, to interface with countries from that part of the world,” Mitchell said.
He said it was an opportunity to speak to officials from the UAE and that agreement had been reached on a number of matters including the exploration of a technical co-operation agreement with the Bahamas with particular emphasis on tourism and financial services.
Mitchell said Morocco which attracts an estimated ten million tourists annually, is interested in The Bahamas’ programme of promoting the tourism industry.
“It looks like an even and good exchange on ideas in tourism, so we agreed that we would have some further discussions on that point as well.
“There is to be a technical follow-up visit by a staff member from the Moroccan foreign ministry in January,” Mitchell said, adding “I extended, on behalf of the Government an invitation to the (Foreign) Minister of Morocco to make a visit to The Bahamas and, at some point, if we settle the technical co-operation agreement which we have proposed, we visit Morocco again to sign the technical co-operation agreement.” CMC
