Is it really possible to reverse the free trade agreement that has been in force for several decades? This is the question La Vie Eco asks itself in its newsstand publication this Friday. This question is part of the current debate in the business community since Moulay Hafid Elalamy said that Morocco will not hesitate to denounce some of its FTAs(Free Trade Agreement) a few weeks ago.
The newspaper recalls that since the minister’s statement, a Morocco-Turkey commission has already been set up to study trade flows between the two countries and consider complementary measures to rebalance the situation. They would allow the FTA between the kingdom and Turkey to continue, but under less disastrous conditions for Morocco.
However, the weekly notes, the WTO (World Trade Organization), of which Morocco is a member, has not provided any exit tools from an FTA. So, what is the solution for Morocco? It should be noted that as a WTO member, Morocco’s claims against an FTA that penalizes its economy are really limited.
According to the newspaper, the kingdom has no technical choice but to challenge anti-competitive practices one by one and sector by sector, then to have recourse to the trade defense department, which will be responsible for presenting cases of dumping or massive imports to the WTO in order to obtain the necessary protection, as many times as necessary.
La Vie Eco also states that the solution that could be more sustainable and, above all, promote cooperation between the signatory countries would be to ratify bilateral agreements in addition to the typical wording of the FTA. Such agreements would, in principle, meet the interests of both parties and compensate for the trade deficit generated by two-way productive investment solutions. For La Vie Eco, this is what Moulay Hafid Elalamy seems to suggest.
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