The Moroccan government have ceded all its shares in the capital of four sugar companies, SURAC, SUNABEL (Gharb-Loukos), SUTA (Tadla) and SUCRAFOR (Moulouya), for MAD 1.367 billion to the Moroccan sugar group COSUMAR, reported MAP.
The contract was signed on Monday in Rabat by Fathallah Oualalou, Morocco's Finance Minister, and Mohamed Fikrat, the President and General director of COSUMAR, in a ceremony presided by the Prime Minister, Driss Jettou.
Fathallah Oualalou told MAP that "several international groups had shown interest in this operation. However, the examination of bids showed that COSUMAR's offer was the most interesting, in terms of industrial investment, the added value in the agricultural sector, the price and human resources."
The group intends to invest MAD 1.6 billion (about US$ 156m) in the six years to come. It counts on an increase of 25% in the cultivated areas and of 40% in farmers' income in the next decade.
According to a communiqu issued at the end of the contract signing ceremony, the operation comes as the last part of the total privatisation of the sugar industry in Morocco, thereby completing a process that lasted 15 years.
In Morocco, some 80,000 people live off the sugar industry, which exploits 90,000ha of land planted with sugar beet and sugar cane. It accounts for the production of about 500,000 tons of sugar per year, i.e. 50% of national demand, explained MAP.
© Morocco Times 2005
