CASABLANCA, Morocco, May 22 (Reuters) – Morocco plans to speed up tender processes for the development of a 2,000-megawatt solar energy plan, starting with the award this year of a first contract for 160 megawatts to be generated using concentrated-solar technology (CSP).

Mustafa Bakkoury, who chairs the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), said a winning consortium for that first phase of a 500-megawatt solar power plant, in the southern region of Ouarzazate, would be announced by the start of summer.

Ouarzazate’s 500-megawatt complex, which should be completed by 2015, is the first in the so-called Moroccan Solar Plan that aims to produce 2 GW of solar power by 2020, which corresponds to 38 percent of the country’s current installed power generation capacity.

“Works (on Ouarzazate’s first 160-megawatt phase) will start in the third or fourth quarter of 2012 and we aim to complete the work,” Bakkoury told the two-day Solar Maghreb conference in Casablanca.

Masen will pick a winner for the 160-megawatt parabolic trough plant from the three following consortia:

- Abeinsa ICI, Abengoa Solar, Mitsui and Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.

- Enel and ACS SCE

MEKNES, Morocco, April 25 (Reuters) – Morocco’s wheat harvest should stand at around 3 million tonnes this year, including 2 million tonnes of soft wheat, down sharply from a year earlier, the head of the country’s agriculture industry group said on Wednesday.

This would mean that wheat imports may rise by 50 percent from their level during the ongoing import calendar year, which starts in June and ends in May of the following year. Bread and semolina are the staples for Morocco’s 34-million population.

Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhannouch said the cereals harvest should reach 4.8 million tonnes this year, above the most recent forecasts but far below last year’s level and the crop budget for 2012, due to bad weather.

Akhannouch did not give a breakdown per variety for the harvest.

A year earlier, Morocco produced 8.4 million tonnes of cereals in 2011, including 4.17 million of soft wheat, 1.85 million of durum wheat and 2.34 million of barley.

Ahmed Ouayach, who heads the Moroccan Confederation of Agriculture, told Reuters Akhannouch’s forecast means that the wheat harvest would stand at 3 million tonnes, including 2 million tonnes of soft wheat and 2 million tonnes of barley.

“The ratio of distribution between the three types of cereals cultivated in Morocco is 40 percent for soft wheat, 40 percent for barley and 20 percent for durum wheat,” Ouayach said on the sidelines of an agriculture fair in the northern city of Meknes.

RABAT, April 24 (Reuters) – Morocco’s prime minister has hit out at courtiers around King Mohammed in rare criticism that could signify the start of a confrontation between the Islamist-led government and powerful figures close to the palace.

Moroccan authorities, under pressure from the “Arab Spring” upheavals elsewhere in the region, held early elections last year which for the first time handed power to the opposition PJD party of moderate Islamists.

Since then, analysts have been predicting a stand-off between the government, which is committed to tackling corruption and poverty, and a moneyed elite with long-standing ties to the palace.

Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane spoke out on Sunday after his government’s plan to reform state-run television, widely seen as a mouthpiece for the monarchy, was criticised by figures close to the palace.

“The Arab Spring is not over yet,” Benkirane told a PJD gathering in Rabat, according to remarks carried on Monday by local newspapers. “It (the Arab Spring) is still wandering about and may feel like coming back,” he added.

“In this country, even the monarchy itself needs citizens who seek reform … Kings are not always surrounded by the right kind of people, they can actually be surrounded by foes who become the first to desert them.”

In a statement emailed to Reuters, Benkirane later said his comments were “taken out of context”.

RABAT (Reuters) – Morocco’s plans to introduce a law this year to regulate strikes will test the Islamist-led government’s ability to carry out reforms to modernize an economy that is badly in need of foreign investment.

The North African country averaged a strike a day last year, the highest number in a decade, often paralyzing public services and leading to the loss of more than 300,000 working days, a near threefold rise from 2010, official figures show.

Those are high numbers for a country where barely 10 percent of the 10-million workforce is affiliated to trade unions.

The planned legislation would force unions to hold direct talks with employers before being able to call a strike and could impose fines on employees who strike unlawfully. But it faces stiff opposition from the country’s trade unions who have taken advantage of recent protests against poverty and unemployment to increase their membership and have started to infiltrate fast-growing sectors such as call centers, which authorities are trying to promote as engines of future economic growth and job creation.

Noubir Amaoui, who heads the Democratic Labor Confederation (CDT), the biggest union among public sector workers, rejected any talks with the government about regulating strikes alone.

“We need a million laws to organize public life … How can authorities allow skilled workers to be paid the minimum wage? Why does it let the majority of private sector employers get away with violations of the labor law,” he said.

The country’s first constitution in 1962 authorized strikes but subjected their organization to a framework law which has never seen the light of day as previous governments feared it would spark a confrontation with the main unions. Since then, the number of unions has risen from two to 25.

AGADIR, Morocco, April 19 (Reuters) – Demand for fertilisers from the poorly-fed African continent is on the rise but still has some way to go before crop yields rise to levels that can significantly cut reliance on food imports, delegates to a fertilisers conference said on Thursday.

The United Nations predicts the continent’s population will double over the next four decades to almost 2 billion, spurring a more rapid rise in demand for staples, such as rice and cereals.

On a per capita basis agricultural output in sub-Saharan Africa declined by 10 percent since the 1970s, while it rose globally by 40 percent, Innocent Okuko, an executive from Nigeria-based Notore Chemical Industries Ltd. told the gathering, hosted by Morocco’s state-run phosphate monopoly OCP, the world’s top exporter of phosphates.

“The average fertiliser consumption in Nigeria stands at 10 kg (22 pounds) per hectare, versus a global average of 100 kg,” said Okuku, whose firm plans to start work next year on a 1-million tonne fertiliser plant in Nigeria.

John Vowell, director at of structured trade commodity finance at FBN Bank of First Bank of Nigeria, said he was seeing “more and more demand from our customers for the financing of storage facilities for fertilizers”.

“But we also see this small guy with a 2-hectare farm plot who has to decide whether to buy fertilisers or feed his family … These are the majority in Africa. That’s why microfinance is the way forward,” Vowell said.

“Fertilizers are expensive, manufacturing them is expensive and few countries in Africa produce them,” said a delegate from Burkina Faso, representing rice producers in the sub-Saharan African country.

RABAT (Reuters) – Morocco expects its 2012 tourism receipts to at least match last year’s as it relies on a growing focus on eastern European and Middle Eastern markets to mitigate any decline in tourist arrivals from the euro zone, the tourism minister said.

Tourism has been the main pillar of economic growth plans for the past decade. It is now Morocco’s biggest source of foreign currency — key to keeping the country’s fragile balance of payments afloat — and at once the second-biggest employer and contributor to Gross Domestic Product GDP.L.

In an interview with Reuters, Lahcen Haddad said Morocco’s tourism development ambitions would fly higher if its flag carrier strikes a partnership with a major airline, probably from the Gulf Arab region, although no deal is on the agenda.

The fortunes of the sector have taken centre-stage after bad weather hurt agriculture, the biggest sector in the economy, forcing the government to slash as low as 3 percent its growth projections for 2012, well below the 5.5 percent annual growth it says is needed to boost jobs.

While he did not dismiss the likelihood of a decline in tourist arrivals in 2012, Haddad said the impact will not be felt at the level of receipts.

“Last year, both tourist arrivals and the number of night stays declined (compared to 2010) yet receipts rose by about 4 percent. It measures the degree of receipts’ resilience,” Haddad said.

“2012 will be a tough year but there won’t be a major drop in receipts. We may close 2012 (with receipts) at the same level we had in 2011 or with a minor increase,” he said, noting that the state’s 2012 budget was based on a 2-3 percent rise in receipts.

RABAT, April 18 (Reuters) – Morocco’s plans to introduce a law this year to regulate strikes will test the Islamist-led government’s ability to carry out reforms to modernize an economy that is badly in need of foreign investment.

The North African country averaged a strike a day last year, the highest number in a decade, often paralysing public services and leading to the loss of more than 300,000 working days, a near threefold rise from 2010, official figures show.

Those are high numbers for a country where barely 10 percent of the 10-million workforce is affiliated to trade unions.

The planned legislation would force unions to hold direct talks with employers before being able to call a strike and could impose fines on employees who strike unlawfully. But it faces stiff opposition from the country’s trade unions who have taken advantage of recent protests against poverty and unemployment to increase their membership and have started to infiltrate fast-growing sectors such as call centres, which authorities are trying to promote as engines of future economic growth and job creation.

Noubir Amaoui, who heads the Democratic Labour Confederation (CDT), the biggest union among public sector workers, rejected any talks with the government about regulating strikes alone.

“We need a million laws to organize public life … How can authorities allow skilled workers to be paid the minimum wage? Why does it let the majority of private sector employers get away with violations of the labour law,” he said.

The country’s first constitution in 1962 authorised strikes but subjected their organisation to a framework law which has never seen the light of day as previous governments feared it would spark a confrontation with the main unions. Since then, the number of unions has risen from two to 25.

RABAT, April 12 (Reuters) – Morocco’s parliament on Wednesday passed the 2012 budget that targets a deficit below 5 percent and subjects corporates and alcohol to higher taxes as the government seeks to reduce wide social inequalities and tame protests over unemployment.

The budget won 166 votes out of 230 present at the session in the 395-member parliament, the official MAP news agency said.

The budget provided for a total expenditure of 346.8 billion dirhams ($40.86 billion) and receipts at 314.5 billion dirhams. It targets a budget deficit of less than 5 percent after it hit 6.1 percent in 2011, its highest since the 1990s.

The impact of bad weather on farming prompted the government to revise down to between 3 and 4 percent the tourism- and agriculture-reliant economy’s growth projection for 2012 from an initial 4.2 percent and the 4.9 percent it achieved in 2011.

The central bank says that with the impact of the slowdown in the euro zone, Morocco’s main trade partner, the $100-billion economy will grow only by between 2 and 3 percent.

Inflation is projected to jump to as much as 2.5 percent from 0.9 percent in 2011 as the government is expected to provide less subsidies – especially for energy products – should global prices surge.

The budget was based on an oil price of $100 a barrel which is below current market price.

RABAT, April 9 (Reuters) – Morocco’s government has agreed to amendments from parliament to widen the imposition of a new tax on firms to help it develop poor areas and help quash grumbling discontent over social inequalities, officials said on Monday.

Plans for the so-called solidarity fund tax were announced in the midst of mass protests last year in Morocco that were inspired by the Arab Spring revolts.

Proceeds from the new tax will help raise 2 billion dirhams ($235 million) for a social solidarity fund to develop poor areas in a country that has one of the widest wealth inequalities in the region and where protesters still take to the streets over poverty, joblessness and corruption.

The fund is also expected to pave the way for a reform of food and energy subsidies – which even the government says benefit mostly those who need them the least.

The 2012 budget now provides for the imposition in 2012 of a tax equal to 1.5 percent of the net profit for firms that make between 50 million and 100 million dirhams in net annual gains, Finance Ministry and parliament officials said.

Firms with annual net profits above 100 million dirhams will be subject to a 2.5 percent tax on their net profit in 2012, they added.

The government also agreed to raise tax on beer and spirits in 2012 by 12.5 and 43 percent respectively, the first increase since 2010, the officials said.

RABAT, March 31 (Reuters) – An investment holding firm controlled by Morocco’s royal family on Saturday posted a 50 percent rise in its net profit helped mostly by higher earnings from banking, mining, steel and sugar affiliates active mostly in the domestic market.

National Investment Co., or SNI, made a net consolidated profit of 4.3 billion dirhams ($513 million) in 2011 versus 2.9 billion dirhams in 2010 in comparable terms, showed financial statements published in pro-establishment newspaper Le Matin.

Through SNI, the Alaouite dynasty – that has been ruling Morocco for close to four centuries – is the biggest private stakeholder in the local economy. This position has recently sparked growing criticism, especially at the height of mass pro-democracy protests last year inspired by Arab Spring revolts.

In 2011, Forbes ranked King Mohammed as the world’s seventh richest royal, estimating his personal net worth at $2.5 billion, which placed him ahead of rulers of Qatar and Kuwait and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Opponents, as well as many business leaders, say firms controlled by the king and his close inner circle dominate key economic sectors. At times, demonstrators have carried placards reading ‘SNI clear off’.

The protests have lost near-total momentum after King Mohammed offered to trim his powers and allowed moderate Islamists to lead for the first time the government, enabling him to stay firmly in charge.

In addition to the net consolidated profit, SNI made 1.07 billion dirhams in net profit from minority interests in 2011, the statements showed.