Los Gobiernos de España y Marruecos celebran la primera ronda de reuniones del nuevo Grupo de Trabajo para el Comercio e Infraestructura

Spain and Morocco held on Thursday 14 July the first meeting on Trade and Infrastructure as agreed in the common roadmap signed in April by both governments. 

The meeting is part of the fabric of joint working groups that address the main pillar issues of relations between the two countries. Following the resumption of cordial relations between Spain and Morocco in April, the governments planned a series of meetings to agree on how to structure trade and investment in common infrastructure for the future.

According to a post on her Twitter social network, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, Ángeles Moreno Bau, co-chaired the meeting along with a large group of senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the Spanish side, the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez, also co-chaired the meeting with her team. 

"Spain and Morocco share a natural space for exchange and interconnection. We are working together to identify the areas in which it is possible to boost the economic relationship between our countries," Moreno Bau commented on his Twitter account after the meeting.

From the Moroccan side, a group of high-ranking government officials took part, accompanied by the Moroccan ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich. 

Economic and trade exchanges are one of the most important points in relations between Spain and Morocco, and analysts describe them as part of the 'cushion of interests' that structures the dealings between the two countries and prevents major ruptures outside of cyclical clashes. 

Spain is Morocco's number one supplier and client since it managed to take over this position from France. The Maghreb country is also a gateway to Africa for Spanish companies and products. It is the main trading partner on the continent, accounting for 47.3 per cent of Spanish exports worth 9.5 billion euros. Morocco, for its part, exported up to 7.3 billion euros worth of goods to Spain in the same year. Some analysts have described the economic relationship as slightly asymmetrical, due to Spain's business muscle, which is of greater calibre than Morocco's, resulting in a positive balance of trade for Spain in every year. Around 350 Spanish companies operate in Morocco. 

From Morocco to Spain, semi-manufactured products top the export lists, mainly from the automotive sector, along with fishery products (6.3 per cent) and fruit (5.1 per cent). 

In the opposite direction, fuels are the most exported product, 13.9%, together with automotive components and fabrics for tailoring and clothing. 
According to public data from the ICEX and the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Trade, these figures have risen exponentially since 1995, except for the stagnation caused by the 2008 recession, which had an impact on the balance in 2009, and the COVID pandemic, which also reduced trade in 2021, without hindering growth in 2021, which exceeded that of 2019. 

From the infrastructural point of view, it is to be hoped that the two governments will work to strengthen their ports from the point of view of complementarity and synergy, a particularly interesting strategy for the Mediterranean area, where the ports of Algeciras Bay and Tangier-Med wake up every morning face to face.