Tax News
by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels
Morocco has recently unveiled details of its plans to re-launch the country’s stock market and to boost its capital markets, notably by renewing fiscal incentives, by increasing transparency, and by improving and modernizing the legislative and regulatory framework.
During his closing address to participants at a conference in Casablanca, Morocco’s Finance Minister Nizar Baraka highlighted a raft of measures, both short- and long-term initiatives, aimed at enabling the country’s public authorities to achieve this goal.
Baraka underlined the need to speed up the adoption of legislative and regulatory texts relating to the capital market, and to diversify the financial instruments available to both issuers and investors.
The minister highlighted the importance of improving market transparency, and strengthening market supervision by establishing an independent authority in Morocco responsible for monitoring and imposing sanctions where necessary.
Alluding to plans to implement an action plan, specifically designed to provide a new impetus for the country’s stock market, the minister said that tax incentives would be reintroduced in Morocco within the framework of the country’s 2013 finance law. These incentives will benefit companies electing to enter the stock market by granting up to a 50% reduction in corporate taxation (IS), the minister pointed out.
The government also plans to improve access to the capital market to small- and medium-sized companies, by creating an alternative stock market dedicated and adapted to the specific needs of these companies.
Other proposed measures aimed at stimulating the stock and capital market include plans to introduce new long-term savings products, notably to benefit company employees, and to set up a monetary and financial code to simplify the legislative framework for investors and for savers.
In order to ensure appropriate implementation of the action plan, the minister announced plans to set up a strategic committee, assisted by a technical committee, comprising representatives of the capital market, involving banks, the treasury, insurance companies and supervisory authorities.
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