The local UNIDO Investment Promotion Unit based in Rabat supports UNIDO ITPO Italy in promoting investment and technology transfer in Morocco.

The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs (General Directorate Cooperation and Development) together with Moroccan, Jordanian, Egyptian and Tunisian Authorities developed a programme to support local small and medium enterprises. The programmes combine a technical component consisting in the opening of an Industrial Promotion Office managed by UNIDO and the establishment of a credit line facilitating the purchase of Italian goods and services. The beneficiaries are local small and medium enterprises and mixed companies.

Within this framework, UNIDO ITPO Italy in collaboration with IPU Morocco provides Italian companies interested in establishing economic/industrial relations in the country with free services ranging from the dissemination of information on investment opportunities, the local legal framework and the financial incentives to the identification of local entrepreneurial counterparts and the assistance during the negotiation phase.

Besides, UNIDO IPU Morocco is in charge of implementing specific activities aimed at strengthening the industrial system competitiveness.

These activities mainly belong to two domains:

• Institutional: implementation of programs supporting the local governmental counterpart (National Agency of Small and Medium Enterprises – ANPME - ) and other institutions working in the same field, thus in order to boost foreign direct investment dynamics, improve services to SME and strengthen the competitiveness of the local industrial system.

• Entrepreneurial: actions aimed at underpinning the investment flows and the adoption of new technologies through industrial collaboration agreements with foreign companies and in particular Italian ones, thus generating employment and improving the performances of local industries.

To this extent, UNIDO ITPO Italy has been implementing, in collaboration the IPU Morocco, specific programmes, at national and regional level, in several sectors such as agribusiness, textile and garments, leather, tanning, marble, ceramic, electric and electronic, environment and renewable energies. Indeed, Morocco also benefits from a special program promoted by ITPO Italy and the Italian Ministry of the Environment, aimed at favouring the adoption of renewable energies and the tutelage of the environmental resources.

For instance, several joint activities have been carried on, such as:

• training and technical and economical assistance to the local companies

• capacity building activities and study tours for local institutions

• participation to and organization of technical fairs and partnership events

• organization of country presentations for Italian entrepreneur