Morocco king calls for new development model

King Mohammed VI urges government reshuffle after summer break in speech to mark his twenty years of rule.

RABAT - King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Monday announced the launch later this year of a committee charged with elaborating a new development model to tackle social inequalities in the North African country in a speech marking twenty years of his rule.

“Recent years have revealed the inability of our development model to meet the growing needs of some of our citizens, to reduce social inequalities and spatial disparities. This is why we called for its re-evaluation and updating,” said King Mohammed VI.

The King said that the committee will serve as an advisory body to make suggestions to improve reforms in key sectors, including education, health, agriculture and investment.

The monarch emphasised some major leaps during his 20-year rule, especially in infrastructure developments such as highways, high-speed railway, ports, renewable energy and urban development.

He acknowledged that infrastructure and institutional reforms were not enough despite their importance.

“The duty of clarity and objectivity requires the qualification of this positive balance sheet to the extent that the progress and achievements, already made, have unfortunately not yet had enough repercussions on the whole of Moroccan society,” said the King.

He also stressed the importance of human development programs to help those living in precariousness and material deprivation.

The monarch also emphasised the need to open up the economy to foreign investors and revamp the public sector.

“Many institutions and international companies have expressed the wish to invest and settle in Morocco,” he said.

He criticised the obstacles imposed by certain national laws, the reluctance and indecision prevailing in some officials sometimes confining Morocco and place it in a negative posture of confinement and reserve, calling for new leaders in decision-making positions

“I ask the head of government to submit to me, after the summer break, proposals to fill executive posts in the government and the civil service with high-level national elites chosen on merit and competence,” he said.

The king reiterated his "policy of the outstretched hand toward Algeria", highlighting Moroccans’ joy following neighbouring Algeria’s win the African Cup of Nations.

“We reaffirm our sincere commitment to keep our hands extended to our brothers in Algeria, faithful to the bonds of fraternity, religion, language and good neighbourliness, which have always united our two brother peoples,” said the King.

Shared borders have been closed between the two North African neighbours since 1994. The two countries are at loggerheads over a set of issues including the Western Sahara, a disputed territory considered by Morocco as an integral part of its sovereign lands, but also claimed by the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.

Morocco has largely been insulated from the turmoil that hit North Africa and the Middle East since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 despite several protests over economic and social problems.

The monarch ceded some of his powers to an elected government after the 2011 constitutional reform which saw Islamists rise to power for the first time in their history.