Morocco’s King Mohammed VI is attending the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) to consolidate Morocco’s relationship with India. The North African country’s top economic position in the continent and its ties with the rest of the world are expected to benefit and strengthen India’s position at the international level.
India is in need of fertilisers and Morocco is well positioned to export them into Asia, since phosphates are used to make a variety of fertilisers, pesticides and animal feeds. The state-run OCP Morocco, the world’s biggest phosphate exporter, already has trading ventures with Tata Chemicals and Chambal Fertilisers, and 400,000 tonne a year of phosphoric acid is exported each year to India. In addition, India buys 5 million tonne (MT) of rock phosphate a year, 20% of which comes from Morocco. India is also looking to get more phosphate from Tunisia.
Also, according to senior officials, India is seeking to explore new ways to expand in energy and infrastructure, as well as innovation and technology, where Morocco ranks second in Africa.
According to McKinsey & Co report on the sub-continent, “India has the potential to increase its crop yields by 70% over the next decade, but one of the factors requiring to be addressed is both the inadequate amount of fertilisers, but also the imbalance that sees far too little use of fertilisers based on phosphate and potash. India has delayed potash imports as it tried to force down prices of potash in particular but, while those prices have fallen, it seems the market has bottomed. The problem for India is that it still has to deal mainly with the North American and Russia/Belarus in terms of potash and its bargaining strength is somewhat limited.”
Various reports in the public domain indicate that the North African nation has plans to double, if not triple, its success in the aviation and automotive industry and to switch to a green economy within the next 15 years. The country is also ranked second in infrastructure among African countries, making it an ideal place for Indian investors to open their businesses and benefit from its location, at a crossroads between Europe, Asia, Africa and the American continent.
If India consolidates its ties with Morocco by setting the stage at the IAFS, the North African nation could offer the ideal relationship as the go-between for India and ‘Francophone Africa’, as well as other European countries.
The theme of the IAFS, ‘Reinvigorated Partnership, Shared Vision’, is expected to provide a high-level political platform to the African heads of state and government and the Indian government to discuss their common problems. They will also share their respective countries’ experience in addressing these problems and draw a roadmap for their partnership, mainly in the economic, trade and technology realms, the aim being to join efforts to promote the socio-economic development of all their people.
At the bilateral level, Morocco-India trade relations have also scored a steady growth. In 2014, trade between the two countries stood at $1.36 billion, with India’s exports to Morocco amounting to $500.5 million, while imports were valued at $855.8 million.
Indian exports to Morocco in 2014 decreased by 21.6% compared with the previous year while Moroccan exports to India registered an increase of 10.2%. The balance of trade is seemingly always in favour of Morocco because of India’s imports of phosphoric acid and rock phosphate.