Since 8 March 2022, the city of Dakhla, the economic capital of the Moroccan Sahara, has been hosting the first Morocco-US Investment Forum.
Initiated by the Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab region council, on which Dakhla depends, in partnership with the Ministry of Industry, it aims, according to its organisers, to consolidate bilateral cooperation and to develop new direct American investments in agriculture, tourism, mining and renewable energy, among other economic fields.
It must be said that since Washington’s recognition, in December 2020, of Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara, new business opportunities have appeared and are encouraged by the Moroccan and American authorities themselves, insofar as they were directly committed to this in the framework of the agreement they signed at the time, one of the crucial points of which was precisely the installation of an economically oriented consulate in Dakhla itself.
As we know, the consulate is still taking a long time to be built because of the refusal of the American Congress, which acts as the United States parliament, to finance it, but this does not prevent businessmen from both countries from getting involved: on the American side alone, some twenty of them have made the trip to the Moroccan Sahara.
It should be noted, moreover, that the Dakhla forum coincided with the visit of the American Under Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, to Morocco, as part of a vast regional tour aimed at convincing the Western camp of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been underway since 24 February 2022. Although the Kingdom had, two days later, formally supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine, many had seen in its refusal to participate in the vote of the UN General Assembly condemning this invasion a sign of neutrality on its part vis-à-vis the various belligerents, which however Rabat denied by stressing that it was in no way proceeding to a “disalignment”. In some circles, it is said that Morocco would, in fact, expect more from the West regarding its own territorial integrity and more specifically the consecration of the Moroccanity of its Sahara.
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