Industry Meeting Morocco: Mezzour urges business leaders to double jobs by 2030

Hibapress

The Minister of Industry and Trade, Ryad Mezzour, urged business leaders on Friday in Tangier to double the number of their jobs by 2030.

Speaking at the official opening ceremony of the 6th edition of Industry Meeting Morocco, organized by Industrie du Maroc Magazine, the minister stressed that business leaders are called upon to achieve a single objective by 2030: to double their jobs, by seizing the opportunities that arise, by developing value chains, or by creating new products and services.

“Our economy has the capacity to create between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs per year, while we have around 300 to 350,000 young people entering the job market annually, and so we must double job creation to fill this gap,” he explained, noting that the number of industrial jobs created between 2004 and 2023 has doubled, while added value and industrial exports have increased 3.7 and 5 times respectively, thanks to the industrial strategies adopted by Morocco, under the far-sighted leadership of HM King Mohammed VI.

Mr. Mezzour also emphasized the difference between the concepts of sovereignty and self-sufficiency, specifying that sovereignty, which is the ability to be able to meet the needs of citizens, must be seen as both an objective and a means. “Until now, we have implemented industrial strategies based on market opportunities and intrinsic skills that allowed us to respond to them, while seizing the maximum of opportunities offered,” the minister said, adding: “the response to our own needs has become, today more than ever, a necessity and a priority for which we must overinvest and further support competitiveness.” For his part, the president of Industry Meeting Morocco and founding president of Industrie du Maroc Magazine, Hicham Rahioui Idrissi, stressed that Industrie du Maroc Magazine works to give each edition a renewed force inspired by the industrial and economic dynamics of Morocco, noting that this edition is inspired by the message addressed by HM King Mohammed VI to the participants in the first edition of the National Industry Day, in which the Sovereign called for reaching a new level of growth and preparing to inaugurate a new industrial era driven by and through the notion of sovereignty.

Mr. Rahioui Idrissi, in this regard, highlighted the efforts made to anchor Moroccan industry in sustainable and high value-added sectors of the future, stressing that this event is an opportunity to contribute to promoting the dynamics of the industrial sector and to strengthening its performance.

For his part, the general manager of Tangier Med Zones (TMZ), Ahmed Bennis, affirmed that “Tanger Med remains an essential lever for our industrial sovereignty promoting the development of a competitive, autonomous and resilient ecosystem”, stressing that this ecosystem plays a central role in this dynamic, by developing local production capacities and attracting massive investments in various sectors, which helps reduce dependence on imports and strengthen local technological expertise.

“Our goal is to strengthen local value chains by facilitating access to international markets, which increases the competitiveness of Moroccan companies in the face of the major challenges of globalization,” he said, considering that achieving this ambition requires strengthening and diversifying economic and industrial partnerships, the strategic positioning of Morocco on international logistics corridors, strengthening trade with Africa in the context of the AfCFTA, the diversification of energy resources and the popularization of the use of new technologies.

In this context, the participants visited the exhibition space of companies and startups embodying excellence and industrial innovation in Morocco.

This two-day event, organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, under the theme “The new industrial era driven by sovereignty”, is intended to be an opportunity to unite the commitment of the various stakeholders, strengthen efficiency and harmony between the actors and consolidate the efforts made to date in the implementation of the new industrial strategy.