Marruecos ultima los detalles de un programa de financiamiento de emprendedores

Moroccan entrepreneurs who have been selected for the FORSA Programme will begin to benefit from financial loans from next August. This has been confirmed by Mustapha Baitas, spokesman for the Moroccan government, who has also indicated that Rabat has already received up to 160,000 applications.

The FORSA Programme, launched by Rabat last March, is an economic plan aimed at financing entrepreneurship in the Kingdom. At the time, the Moroccan government identified job creation and the promotion of entrepreneurship, particularly among the young population, among the project's priorities. "The government makes employment the main focus of all economic policy," said Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch at the time. The country's youth unemployment rate was over 27% in 2021, after a sharp rise in the wake of the pandemic, something the Kingdom now aims to combat. 

The programme is aimed at Moroccan residents and Moroccans living abroad aged 18 and over who have an entrepreneurial idea or project they wish to pursue, or who have founded a business in the last three years. Informal sector workers will also be able to present their project in order to formalise their activity. 

The programme provides for the transfer of up to 100,000 dirhams (around 10,000 euros) per project, of which 10,000 dirhams will be in the form of a grant and the rest in the form of a loan at 0% interest, to be repaid over 10 years with a 2-year grace period. Entrepreneurs may also, if they wish, only benefit from the subsidy.

The Moroccan government expects to allocate up to 1.25 million dirhams (around 120 million euros) to 10,000 entrepreneurs, who can propose projects in all sectors of the economy, in any of the Kingdom's 12 regions. In addition, the projects selected under the programme will benefit from "e-leaning" training, through an online platform set up by the government with a series of courses and activities aimed at entrepreneurial training.

The management of the programme was entrusted to the Ministry of Tourism, Handicrafts and Social and Solidarity Economy, through the Moroccan Society of Tourism Engineering (SMIT), leading a committee in which the rest of the ministries with economic functions also participate, as well as the Wali of the regions and other government officials. 

Applications are being handled at the regional level, and, according to Baitas, will reach "cruising speed" by the end of July, allowing the processing of "approximately 2,000 dossiers per week". In addition, applicants can defend their projects in individual interviews before these commissions, of which there have been nearly 6,000 to date, according to the Moroccan spokesman, who indicated that Rabat plans to speed up the process.

These commissions will choose the most promising and innovative projects, which will benefit from a two-and-a-half-month incubation programme, offering those chosen advice and all kinds of resources to ensure the growth and success of their business.

In 2021, King Mohammed VI launched the so-called New Development Model, an economic plan with an eye on 2035 that aims to turn the Kingdom into a "pioneering power, driven by the capacities of its citizens and at the service of their well-being", and since then, Rabat has launched a multitude of economic programmes aimed at boosting the economic and business development of the North African country.