During his official visit to Rabat on 20-21 June 2016, Deputy State Secretary for Hungary’s foreign trade policy of Opening towards the South, Szilveszter Bus, held talks with Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita, Minister Delegate for Water Charafat Afailal, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr. Mohammed Menayad and the directors of the Moroccan National Tourist Office.
At the meetings, the Deputy State Secretary stressed that Hungary is paying particular attention to the North African region for both external economic and security reasons. “We regard the region’s political stability and economic development as being in the interests of Europe. As the most stable country in the region, Morocco has bene a reliable partner to Hungary for many years, as mirrored by the continuous increase in bilateral trade flow”, Mr. Bus said, adding that “we are making intensive efforts to expand our business relations”, before proposing the organisation of an investment forum sometime during the second half of this year.
The parties agreed that, following the last session of the Joint Economic Committee in December 2015, it was time to determine concrete projects, something that most definitely requires the facilitation of regular meetings between businesspeople from both countries. Primary fields of cooperation that hold new opportunities include water management, urban development, agriculture, renewable energy sources and public transport. Interest within business circles is promising with regard to all of these prioritised sectors.
During his meetings, Mr. Bus also spoke about the key need to develop tourism relations and called for the establishment of a direct air passenger route between Hungary and Morocco. He also said he hoped Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad would soon visit Budapest.
Morocco, which is the region’s most environmentally aware country, looks to Hungary as an example within the field of water management and recognises world-class Hungarian expertise. Morocco is expecting Hungary’s high-level participation at the UNFCCC (COP22) climate summit to be held in Marrakech in November 2016. Mr. Bus in turn confirmed Minister Charafat Afailal’s participation at the Budapest Water Summit, also in November of this year.
According to Minister Delegate for Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita, Hungary’s policy of Opening towards the South is perfectly in line with Morocco’s foreign policy efforts, the main elements of which are establishing greater diversity and improving relations with Central Europe, in addition to the country’s more traditional relations. They understand and acknowledge the Hungarian Government’s policy with relation to the European Union, because issues relating to national sovereignty are also extremely important to Morocco. The Moroccan administration views our migration policies with a high degree of sympathy and is supporting our efforts.