A spirit of solidarity. The officials of the Ministry of Tourism, Handicrafts, Air Transport and Social Economy, as well as the professionals of the tourist transport and the Professional Grouping of Banks of Morocco (GPBM) organized a remote meeting at the beginning of the week. This meeting focused on the economic revival of the tourist sector, with a view to finding a way out of the crisis with the least possible damage.
This meeting, which was chaired by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism, Mohamed Msellek, focused on the procedure of postponement of the repayment of the due dates of the bank credits of the tourist transport companies. The meeting, also known as measure 7 of the program contract, recommends the establishment of a moratorium for the repayment of the due dates of bank credits. It also recommends the repayment of the due dates of leases until December 31, 2020 without payment of fees or penalties for the tourist companies and their employees. This decision was taken in view of the repercussions of the pandemic of the new Coronavirus (Covid-19).
The meeting was also intended to examine the request of the FNTT to put in place a new moratorium for the repayment of bank loans until the end of December 2021, noted the sectoral federation. It added that this request had been made because of the shutdown of the tourist transport fleet, the lack of reservations, the entry of most of the tourist emitting countries in a second wave of containment and the announcement of a state of emergency in several other countries.
At the beginning of this meeting, Msellek stressed the willingness of the supervising ministry to continue the consultation with professionals. At the same time, he pointed out that the initiatives and actions undertaken by the State for the management of this stage in order to come out with the least damage while working to find common solutions to ensure positive interaction with all proposals.
The representatives of the FNTT, including its secretary general, Mohamed Ba Mansour, the president of the regional association of tourist transport agencies in the Oriental region, Mounir Kadiji, the regional secretary of the Federation in the Souss region, the coordinator of the FNTT in the Casablanca-Settat region, welcomed the holding of this working meeting at the request of the federation and called for efficient and urgent solutions to save companies in the sector from bankruptcy and allow the preservation of jobs.
They recommended the implementation of a banking product that meets the expectations of professionals in the sector, which will be guaranteed by the State, as well as the postponement of the repayment of bank loan installments until the end of December 2021. Furthermore, they called for the Professional Association of Finance Companies (APSF) to be involved in the next meeting in order to speed up the measures agreed with professionals. FNTT members also recalled the social support granted to employees in the sector (MAD 2,000 per month) until the end of December of the current year. For his part, the GPBM’s General Director, El Hadi Chaïbaïnou, called for the procedures to be harmonized and for urgent intermediate solutions to be found. He also recommended that the APSF be involved in the next meeting in order to study all the proposals.
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