Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, left, with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara in March. Photo: Reuters
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* King Mohammed VI’s recent tour of several African countries reflects Morocco’s drive to boost economic influence in the region… The King underscored Rabat’s outreach campaign as a model for south-south cooperation. As he told a business conference in Cote D’Ivoire: “Africa is a huge continent with its vital forces, its resources and potentialities. It must take charge of itself; it is no longer a continent colonized. This is why Africa should trust Africa.” *
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Al Jazeera, by Paul Adrian Raymond (Marrakech, Morocco, April 15, 2014) — The recent tour of King Mohamed VI of Morocco of a number of African countries was packed with symbolism. It was a reflection of the kingdom’s recent drive to expand its economic and political influence across sub-Saharan Africa, and it showed how Morocco makes use of both historic ties in the region and the kingdom’s trump card — the spiritual authority of the Moroccan throne. “Morocco has strategic depth in West Africa, built on historical, cultural and religious relations,” Mohammed Benhammou, president of the Moroccan Centre for Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera. “There’s a strong religious link through the Tijaniyyah order of Sufism, which has a long presence in the area. The order originated in Fes, which still welcomes many pilgrims from West Africa, so there’s a link between the king and residents of those countries.”
For many Muslims across West Africa, influenced by Sufi strands of Islam, the Moroccan monarch is more than just another head of state. He is the Commander of the Faithful (Amir Al Mu’mineen), an Islamic title for a ruler with spiritual as well as political authority. As such, he commands respect: when Malian rebel leader Bilal Ag Acherif visited Marrakech in January, he did not stand directly next to his host, but kissed the king’s hand and then took a deferential step back to pray slightly behind him. The monarch’s religious credentials have played a key role in Morocco’s recent push to expand its regional clout. In February, King Mohammad set off on a tour of Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Gabon, his second regional trip in less than five months. He took with him a delegation of advisors and company CEOs who negotiated a raft of agreements covering everything from training imams in Ivory Coast to agriculture and mining projects.
There is sound economic logic to the way Morocco is pushing to expand its commercial ties in the south and east. As France and Spain struggle to recover from the eurozone crisis, Moroccan companies that have traditionally looked north are seeking new opportunities in the fast-growing economies of West Africa. “Southern Europe is in the doldrums, so Morocco is looking for new markets and also opportunities for its banking sector,” Michael Willis, a lecturer on Maghreb politics at Oxford University, told Al Jazeera. One place the country is looking is in Gabon, a tiny West African nation whose economy has grown at about six percent a year since 2010. In March, Morocco signed a $2.3bn deal to produce fertilizer using Moroccan phosphate and natural gas from Gabon. The deal was followed up by a draft law in the Moroccan parliament that would allow visa-free travel between the two countries. Countries like Gabon are particularly attractive to Morocco’s growing financial sector. In 2013, two Moroccan banks, Attijariwafa Bank and Groupe BCP, ranked among the continent’s top 10 biggest financial institutions, and their influence looks set to spread. Another Moroccan bank, Banque Populaire, recently opened a branch in Mali, and some Moroccan banks are now investing in mining projects as distant as the Congo, competing with the five big South African banks that dominate the continent.
[Continue Reading at Al Jazeera…]
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