Morocco, eager to lure more foreign investment and speed up exports, is scrapping a state monopoly operating its ports to improve competitiveness, Transport and Public Works Minister Karim Ghellab said.
More than 90 percent of the country's exports pass through the 16 ports on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. The government sees exports as the engine of Morocco's $52 billion economy as it seeks to raise average annual economic growth to 7 percent in the next decade after 4.0 percent in the past 10 years.
The ports reform will be effective on December 5, eight days before Morocco signs an air agreement with the European Union to expand the kingdom's tourism industry.
The Ports Exploitation Office (ODEP), the state monopoly running the ports, will be replaced by a new Ports Exploitation Company (Sodep), which could be privatised later on, Ghellab told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.
"The new (ports reform) law allows immediately the private sector to enter the business in all newly-created port and shipping infrastructures as well as in current infrastructures which are not conceded by the state to Sodep or Somaport," he said. Somaport is a consortium of five companies, including the state-owned shipping firm Comanov, which is slated for privatisation next year.
TRIM COSTS: Ghellab named the oil terminals in the northern Moroccan ports of Jorf and Nador among the port infrastructures to be opened for the private sector.
"The ports reform ushers in competition among operators and shipping firms as it replaces the 'client approach' by the 'user approach' to improve service quality and lower costs," he added. Local experts estimated Morocco's ports export costs are higher than in European ports and put Casablanca's port as the most expensive in the Mediterranean region.
"Our objective is to cut the port tariffs by 25 percent to 30 percent as soon as the reform becomes effective and by more than that later on," Ghellab said. Under the reform, the state keeps only a regulation role via the Ports National Agency to uphold fair competition and respect of free market rules.
"The reform permits the creation of SODEP, as a sector champion, alongside new private operators like Somaport in Casablanca, Mass al Maghrib to run cereals terminal in Casablanca and Mass Jorf also specialised in cereals storage," Ghellab said. Morocco is the only Maghred state to have free trade agreement accords with the European Union and the United States.