Morocco # English board

Hi All,

over the past few years, Moroccan government is investing tremendous efforts and money towards the establishment of a new policy for creating new businesses. In fact, in almost no time at all, tens of organizations across the country, whose aim is to provide young and motivated entrepreneurs a wide range of services to help them accomplish their goal, have been put in place by local and international third parties. These services include incubation, finacial support, coaching to name a few. There are even new TV programs which go in parallel with this new policy only to feed the eagerness and motivation among young talents to create new businesses.

Thus, One of the problems that have occured to me, is the fact that newly graduate students and young profesionals have very little, or no knowledge at all, about the risks and opportunities they may have to face, if one day they decide to run on their own, that's why the struggle of the governement not only to provide an adequte plateform, but also to convince young potentials that creating new businesses and taking new challeneges is an opportunity to create plus value for the local economy.

I know most of the readers of this forum live in countries like USA, Canada or UE and have a different perspective about the subject, and I am opening this discussion to get your feedback about what can moroccans do and don't do to become as eager and willing to create new businesses, and what are the economic fields that you guys think are the most suitable to be invested in to thrive our economy.

Peace

morocco is world moste ranking country,in corrupion...im not crazy to invest in morocco,an the moroccan economy is very bad too,you can read it,on the UN SITE

well it looks like you've been away from Morocco too long, coz things have changed a great deal, still there is corruption but corruption haunts evenry country's economy be it big or small, so things have changed so that you know, and even people are tarting to accept that.

im visiting morocco every summer..im born n raised in holland

Well, the governement has pretty much paved the way for anything related to tourism, with their 2010 target. But I'm not sure we can compete with the big boys from Dubaï in terms of investment, so that leaves one piece of that pie the big boys won't touch, meaning the local tourism. There is room for low-cost hotels, cheap resorts, and I mean really cheap, the purchase power of the middle class is pretty tight in Morocco. I saw once on Echoeco about what moroccans spend during the summer period, it's definitely not much.

In terms of business ideas, it's pretty easy given the following parameters : everytime we go back, the big cities look more and more like any european city, consumption habits are becoming the same, so all one has to do is look at Europe and precede the wave. One idea, which I hate, but there's no denying it's gonna come up is taking care of the elderly, there are things described in moroccan newspapers which are a disgrace, old people left alone in hospitals because it's not in our culture to put our parents in resting homes and the middle class is more and more crammed in small appartments in big cities. They'd rather pay than have their parents with them. I love the progress we've made but this is definitely one side effect I don't like.

I'd say for Morocco, if you want to invest, follow this simple rule : think big but for small revenues.

Chelhman,

You are probably right about how the tourism pie is being divided between emiratees investors, but there are other fields that may be mouth watering for investors other than tourism or catering, let's say for example Hight Tech products and services, I believe it is a very important highway for investors willing to play significant role in the development of our company, the biggest playes of this game are either local resellers of equipement and software or French offshore companies opening offices in Morocco to cut costs and maximize profits. SO it may be worthy to look at this venue, what do you think?

Hi Driss,

Well, I thought about the offshoring but it might be too ephemeral, pretty soon you'll have countries south of us (Senegal, Mali...) offering the same services for half the price, right now the only thing holding them back is the bandwidth availability since the communications are now web-based to cut costs.
On the subject of offshoring, if I were the minister of finance, I'd take a look at offshoring finance. Europe is becoming too paranoïd when it comes to money deposits and movement, so if we loosen the regulations just a little bit, we could draw huge deposits in our banks which we could be used for investments. Try opening an account in Luxemburg these days, you're asked a million questions. We could become the Switzerland of africa. Trust me on this one, I know a lot of people who would gladly turn to Morocco if we could offer them some banking secrecy and a good online service.

As for high tech, I'm afraid I'm not qualified to give an opinion.
But basically, our problem (MREs) is the investment size, we can't afford large projects. Offshoring is being set up these days by large french companies for instance. That's why I'm aiming at smaller investments but with a big audience. The recent trend is offering a service for an affordable price, low-cost epitomizes that trend, and Moroccans are thirsty when it comes to services, you give them impeccable service and a smile, they'll open their wallets.

One thing that might work is to partner with Moroccans who have foreign nationalities, because they can mount a company in Morocco with very advantagous terms; and then do Import/export together( duty free).

Quote
Driss1
Hi All,

over the past few years, Moroccan government is investing tremendous efforts and money towards the establishment of a new policy for creating new businesses. In fact, in almost no time at all, tens of organizations across the country, whose aim is to provide young and motivated entrepreneurs a wide range of services to help them accomplish their goal, have been put in place by local and international third parties. These services include incubation, finacial support, coaching to name a few. There are even new TV programs which go in parallel with this new policy only to feed the eagerness and motivation among young talents to create new businesses.

Thus, One of the problems that have occured to me, is the fact that newly graduate students and young profesionals have very little, or no knowledge at all, about the risks and opportunities they may have to face, if one day they decide to run on their own, that's why the struggle of the governement not only to provide an adequte plateform, but also to convince young potentials that creating new businesses and taking new challeneges is an opportunity to create plus value for the local economy.

I know most of the readers of this forum live in countries like USA, Canada or UE and have a different perspective about the subject, and I am opening this discussion to get your feedback about what can moroccans do and don't do to become as eager and willing to create new businesses, and what are the economic fields that you guys think are the most suitable to be invested in to thrive our economy.

Peace

For Racines,

Can you give some practical examples about what you can import/export to/from morocco ? and what are the requirments for it ?

For Driss,

How do you can get IT jobs and how do you can determine the rate to charge ? is there any sites where you can find IT jobs for bids ?

Thank you all

you don't bid on jobs whether on IT or some other field, so I am not getting you right, do you want web sites where you can look for jobs? lease let me know I might be able to help you out on this.

I am talking about if you have your company, how to get contract jobs in morocco ( by bid i mean les appels d' offre), is there any site on which you can find them?

unfortunately there aren't any sites of the like, I am actully starting my own IT company and I have to do the prospecting myself...

I wish you succefull in your stratup company.

can you please let me know the procedures to follow to start a company in IT domain ? and what are adminstrative problems that one may face with moroccan authority ? Thanks

Hi Mima,

Take a look at this, you might find something interesting :

[www.1stmaroc.com]

Thanks Chelhman for the site

Mima,
the adminisrative procedures are becoming less and less complicated, all you need, and according to the legal statu of your startup, you will have to provide certain documents to get the (Patente, Registre de Commerce), all these documents are easy to obtain, the best thing to do is to go the CRI (Centre Régional d'Investissement) of your local region and ask as many questions as you want as they will help you through.

What you have to worry about is that the IT business in Morocco resembles the American's in the early 80's where Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were calling the shots, two or three companies here in Morocco are the leaders not beceause they have better products and services, but because they have money brimming over their pockets and you can deinitely not compete against those, but the real problem is not about comptetition itself, because competition is everywere but the Moroccan competition is not FAIR, and that's what makes it hard for small IT companies to remain afloat.

Anyway, I may keep talking forever about this

any more info let me know, and while you're at it go to www.casablanca.ma (Espace Investisseurs on the left panel), you might get useful info.

Driss

i want to do sarres and kaftan business in morocco so what to do? what is tax in morocco like import duty etc.which tipe of tax there.

ashish

Salam
Were is DRISS1???
We need to talk regarding opportunities in Tanger
Are you available??

[www.avito.ma]