Green energy to take centre stage during upcoming economic forum between Spain and Morocco

Presidents of Confederation of Enterprises of Spain and Morocco, alongside minister from both nations will open the forum, according to the forum’s preliminary schedule.

Antonio Garamendi, president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Chakib Alj, president of the General Confederation of Moroccan Companies (CGEM), and the Spanish Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism Reyes Maroto and Nadia Fettah, the Moroccan economy’s finance minister will launch the event.

“How Moroccan and Spanish companies can jointly take advantage of the opportunities presented by the reconfiguration of global value chains” will be the focus of the forum’s opening panel.

According to the program distributed to guests and seen by Spanish agency EFE, the forum will be closed by the Moroccan president, Aziz Akhannouch, and the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.

The number of Spanish ministers who will attend the Spanish-Moroccan High Level Meeting  is not yet known, but they are expected to sign several bilateral agreements with their Moroccan counterparts.

Vice president of the CGEM, Mehdi Tazi, the president of CEOE International, Marta Blanco, and representatives of the Moroccan bank Attijariwafa, Moroccan consultancy Valyans, the Spanish firm Inditex and the Spanish automobile group Gestamp will also take part in the event.

The second panel will be entitled “The energy transition and the circular economy, key sectors of the Morocco-Spain economic association”led by the general director of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Inmaculada Riera, as well as representatives of organizations and companies from both countries.

The last time that the Governments of Spain and Morocco held a meeting of this type was in June 2015 in Madrid. Since then, there have been two scheduled appointments, in 2020 and 2021, but both failed.

Madrid and Rabat normalised their relations after Sánchez supported Morocco’s proposal for autonomy for the Sahara.

This rapprochement was sealed during a visit by Sánchez to Morocco in April of that year, when the Spanish president attended an audience with King Mohamed VI and a joint declaration was signed.