Highlights

Mr. Mohammed BOUSSAID, Minister of Economy and Finance, and Mr. Lahcen HADDAD, Minister of Tourism, co-chaired, on Thursday, January 28th, 2016 in Rabat, the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding relating to the implementation of a Guarantee fund dedicated to tourism projects.

This ceremony was marked by the presence of Minister of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy, Mr. Moulay Hafid ELALAMY, minister delegate to the minister of interior, Charki DRAISS, minister delegate for small enterprises and the Integration of the Informal Sector, Mamoun BOUHDOUD, the President of the Professional organization of the Banks of Morocco GPBM, Mr. Othman BENJELLOUN and President of the National Confederacy of Tourism, Mr. Abdellatif KABBAJ.

Furthermore Mr. BOUSSAID drew attention to the efforts made by the State to support and finance companies operating in the tourism sector, mentioning in particular the Moroccan Fund of tourist development, the PME «guarantee fund ", as well as the Fund of co-financing «Renovotel ". He aslo invited on the occasion the professionals to invest ‘now’ in the tourism sector in order to engage a new dynamic of development within it.

The Minister also specified that the memorandum of understanding relating to the implementation of a Guarantee fund dedicated to tourism projects, the object of the signing ceremony, reflects the will of the Government to strengthen its support for the sector of tourism and to support it in its process of development.

Expressing himself on this occasion, Mr. Haddad indicated that in absence of a mechanism of guarantee adapted to the large-scale strategic tourism projects whose average of investment exceeds 100 MDH, banks continued to perceive the tourist projects as risky particularly the projects of animation and the projects of accommodation in the emerging destinations whose integrated seaside resorts are a part, spotting, in this sense, that this Guarantee fund will allow to give confidence to banks and to investors on their involvement in the projects of seaside resorts.

He also indicated that his department works in collaboration with the Ministry of Economy and Finances on the implementation of a mechanism of bonuses of investment to support tourism investment and direct it to the less developed or emerging territories, as well as to new development opportunities.

For his part, the President of the GPBM emphasized that banks make a commitment to promote the banking financing of the tourism investments entering within the framework of this mechanism. He also drew attention to the need for choosing well the sites and invited the professionals to put in place a real project management.

Signed by Minister of Economy and Finance, Mohamed BOUSSAID, Minister of Tourism, Lahcen Haddad, the President of the professional organization of the Banks of Morocco (GPBM), Othman Benjelloun, the managing director of the central guarantee fund ( CCG), Hicham Zanati Serghini, and the Chairman of the Management Board of the Moroccan Company of tourist engineering ( SMIT), Imad Barrakad, this memorandum of understanding aims at implementing a mechanism intended to guarantee bank loans granted for the realization of medium and large-sized projects of accommodation and/or tourism animation, while assuring the tourist companies the guarantee of their medium and long-term bank loans.

Dedicated in particular to the tourist projects of the plan Azure (seaside) over the period 2015-2020, this Guarantee fund will be endowed with a 400 million dirham budget ( MDH) for the period 2016-2020. An amount, which will be covered at the level of 300 MDH by the State, and at the level of 100 MDH by the Fund Hassan II for the economic and social development.

This Guarantee fund, which comes to complete the global architecture regarding mobilization of the financial resources in shareholders’ equity and in bank debts put in since the beginning of the Vision 2020, will allow to give a new breath to the projects being in emerging zone and not yet realized.

To accompany the development of seaside resorts, the quota of guarantee is more attractive for the projects situated in the integrated seaside resorts of the «Program Azur 2020 " namely 60 % of the credit in main thing against 50 % for the projects situated apart from the aforementioned resorts.

So, this new tool will allow remedying the problem of granting of the debt by banks by participating in the risk supported by the latter with a risk ceiling going to 50 MDH per project and to 350 MDH per resort in case of failure of the investor. It comes as a supplement to the offer of guarantee granted by the «Guarantee fund PME «targeting the small-sized projects with a 10 MDH commitment ceiling per project.

It will allow to reduce, in the medium and long term, the level of risk to which banks are exposed to be able to grant more credits that will promote job creation (about 50.000 jobs, among which 10.000 direct jobs)

The management of this new mechanism was entrusted to the Central Guarantee Fund within the framework of a convention of management concluded with the State.

The memorandum of understanding also plans the institution of a control committee bringing together representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Tourism, the SMIT, the GPBM and the CCG for the implementation of this mechanism.