{"id":270749,"date":"2020-04-02T16:40:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T19:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=270749"},"modified":"2020-04-03T09:37:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T12:37:27","slug":"a-locked-down-morocco-keeps-trading-with-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/a-locked-down-morocco-keeps-trading-with-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"A locked-down Morocco keeps trading with Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Just like in every other country in the world, Morocco\u2019s economy is under the impact of the new coronavirus pandemic. The travel, automobile and textile industries are struggling the most. Morocco\u2019s ambassador to Bras\u00edlia, Nabil Adghoghi (picture above)<\/em>, discussed the situation with ANBA and said trade with Brazil is unaffected.<\/p>\n

According to Adghoghi, one of the fastest-growing Moroccan industries was carmaking. Now, activity has come to a halt. Last year saw 400,000 vehicles shipped from Morocco, fetching USD 7 billion. \u201cThe goal was to see a million vehicles in 2022, but that is unlikely, because the industry has taken a really bad hit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another industry in a standstill is tourism. \u201cWe get about 12 to 13 million tourists a year, mainly from the European Union. But sadly, this shutdown means the industry is virtually idle. There are no more tourists to speak of. We would get about 50,000 tourists from Brazil, and about three weeks ago Royal Air Maroc [the Moroccan airline] stopped flying to S\u00e3o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian citizens who were in Morocco have already returned home,\u201d the ambassador said.<\/p>\n

According to Adghoghi, Morocco\u2019s textile industry \u2013 which employs some 160,000 people \u2013 is also almost completely still due to Covid-19. \u201cThis is a very vibrant industry, and it\u2019s struggling, because it gets raw material from China, and foreign demand has also plummeted, especially in the United States and Europe,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Brazil<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aside from the impact on tourism, Brazil-Morocco trade is going on as usual. Fertilizers are Morocco\u2019s top-selling items to Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand for fertilizers such as phosphorus and potassium hasn\u2019t gone down, because these are medium-term contracts. We have seen no impact on that for the time being. Agricultural activity in Brazil is going on as usual,\u201d said Adghoghi.<\/p>\n

And Brazil\u2019s sales of commodities like sugar, soy, coffee and \u00a0animal protein to Morocco are also unchanged, according to the ambassador.<\/p>\n

Set of measures<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Moroccan administration is putting in place a set of measures to address the situation. According to the ambassador, priority number one is sanitation. In other words, the government is working to outfit hospitals so they can take care of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cPriority number two is the social aspect. The government is covering part of workers\u2019 wages and assisting informal workers,\u201d said Adghoghi.<\/p>\n

Priority number three is the economy. The ambassador explains that the Central Bank has cut down interest. A three-month grace period on rent and loan payments is also in place, among other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a package of urgent measures to inject currency into the economy, to provide a financial cushion for the lockdown, because the administration can\u2019t tell people to stay home if it won\u2019t give them an income and food,\u201d the ambassador argued. \u201cThese measures are designed to ensure that businesses are viable. You need to keep the national economic and business fabric alive. This will all be overcome soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/p>\n

Jalal Morchidi\/Anadolu Agency\/AFP<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The travel, automobile and textile industries are standing still, but fertilizer and commodities keep being shipped from Brazil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":270737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[5651,2062,14155,14156,14758,2792,9558,14767,14757],"class_list":{"0":"post-270749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-ambassador","9":"tag-commodities","10":"tag-coronavirus-en","11":"tag-covid-19-en","12":"tag-embaixador-do-marrocos-em-brasilia","13":"tag-fertilizer","14":"tag-morocco-en","15":"tag-nabil-adghoghi-en","16":"tag-nabil-adghoghi"},"wps_subtitle":"The travel, automobile and textile industries are standing still, but fertilizer and commodities keep being shipped from Brazil.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}