As part of the implementation of the Programme to Support the Moroccan- EU Action Plan (P3AIII), Mr. Salaheddine Mezouar, the Minister of Economy and Finance and Mr.Youssef Amrani, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, chaired Wednesday, March 9th 2011 in Rabat the seminar to launch the Institutional twinning project to support the Exchange Office in the establishment of foreign trade statistics.
The seminar was held at the Ministry of Economy and Finance in the presence of the Ambassadors of the European Union and France as well as representatives from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE-France), Bank of France and the various institutions participating in the project.
This twinning project combines the Exchange Office and three French institutions: INSEE, Bank of France and the Directorate General of Customs. It aims to contribute to the approximation of Moroccan legislation, regulations and standards to those of the EU with a view to facilitate the comparative study of foreign trade statistics and their use to monitor the implementation of Moroccan- European Union Action Plan.
The complexity and the growing volume of transactions between Morocco and the outside world, the need to develop new data-gathering methodologies in the context to gradually decontrol foreign exchange, and adapting methods and practices with international guidelines and convergence towards EU legislation require new adaptations of the statistics of the Exchange Office which will benefit from the twinning project.
The 24-month project (2011-2012) is funded by the European Union with an amount of 1.26 million. The administrative and financial monitoring of the project is ensured in France by ADETEF.
The project objective is the implementation of the following results:
The methodologies used will be better understood by end users. Further adjustments are proposed in the context of the implementation of the sixth edition of the IMF Balance of Payments and the recommendations of the United Nations on foreign trade and national accounts;
The organization and the institutional capacity of the Exchange Office will be strengthened through the analysis, validation and formalization of the different procedures for data entry, production, development and dissemination;
The preparation and implementation capacities of specific investigations will be consolidated for some key items in the Balance of Payments namely direct investment, transfers from Moroccans residing abroad (MRE) and services;
Work tools used to tighten the computer system and the analysis of foreign trade statistics will be developed to improve data exchange procedures within and outside the country and to extend the analysis of the asymmetries with key partners;
As to human resources, the internal capacity of the Exchange Office will be reinforced through statistics training of the representatives of the Exchange Office in Morocco and in the European Union countries.
In this context, some thirty French experts will share their experience with the Exchange Office and its partners through technical assistance and training seminars (640 days / experts) as well as several study visits in France and in other European countries to share experience and transfer competencies.