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Mfonobong Nsehe, Contributor
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Last Wednesday, at a glamorous ceremony chaired by his Majesty King Mohammed VI and attended by several of Morocco’s most successful businessmen, cabinet ministers, diplomats and technocrats, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, Morocco’s Minister of Trade and Industry, presented the most ambitious industrial plan ever proposed in Morocco.
Moulay Hafid Elalamy is one of Morocco’s wealthiest men with a fortune estimated at $500 million. In 1995, after a stint as the CEO of the African Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Moroccan holding company, ONA Group, Elalamy founded Saham Group, a large Moroccan conglomerate with interests in insurance, finance, offshoring and health. In October 2013, while Elalamy was still at the helm of Saham, King Mohammed VI appointed Elalamy as the Kingdom’s Minister of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy with the mandate of promoting and facilitating industrialization in Morocco and transforming the Kingdom into a globally competitive regional industrial hub in line with the King’s vision.
Moulay Hafid Elalamy
Elalamy, 54, has set to work. Presenting the 7-year industrial growth and acceleration plan to the King and other dignitaries on Wednesday, the minister declared that his first objective is to create 500,000 new sustainable jobs by 2020 and significantly increase the share of industry in GDP to 23%, versus 14% today. Elalamy’s plan, which will build significantly on Morocco’s achievements in industries like aeronautics, car-making and offshoring, will be inclusive and reintegrate the Kingdom’s traditional job-creating industries.
Elalamy’s plan focuses on ten key pillars, including the creation of a new industrial ecosystem, a dynamic relationship between large industrial groups which would act as steering enterprises, and small and medium enterprises, and strengthening and reinforcing the manufacturing industry as a major job creator. Other measures involve helping micro-enterprises transition smoothly from the informal sector to the formal sector. This system would include an adequate tax scheme, social security coverage, and dedicated support and funding.
